The Daughters of Alfred F Jones
by daughterofacountry
Summary: This is the story of Alfred's daughters. It is from the perspective of the youngest as I made her the main character (until later on when it switches to France's). Please review/favorite/follow if you love it and want to read more of it. Hope you like it! Over 2000 views, thanks to all who have viewed so far, and I will be starting a sequel very shortly so keep your eyes open
1. The daughters of Alfred F Jones

Light surrounded me as the darkness faded away. I could hear crying and I started to cry as well, breathing in for the first time. Strong hands wrapped a towel round me and held me close, making me feel safe. "Alfred." I heard someone say. I knew that voice, it had been very muffled last time but I had heard it every day. "Boy or girl?" The voice said. The person that was carrying me walked over to whoever was speaking. "It's another girl." He said. I opened my eyes, blinking in the light, to look at them. The man had scruffy blond hair, blue eyes and he was wearing glasses. He had a brown suit on with a darker brown jacket and tie, his shirt was white. he had a great big smile on his face as he looked from me to my mother. She had to be my mother because after she was told that I was a girl, she smiled to and said, "So we have three daughters." "Yep." The man said, still smiling hugely. He must be my father, because my mother said 'we' and he responded. Just then there was a knock on the door. "One sec dude." My father yelled. Then he put me down, picked up one of my sisters and handed her to my mother, then he picked me up again. "What about Maria?" My mother asked him, they must already have named those two, but not me. "Well this will be Arthur at the door, so he can hold her." He said. He walked over to the door and opened it slowly, trying to keep me balanced safely with one arm. "I just came up to check if it was all over, everyone's anxious to see them." The man said. His blonde hair was even scruffier than my father's. He had green eyes, huge eyebrows and was wearing a green jacket and tie with a white shirt. "It's over, you've got three nieces by the way." My father said, somewhat shocking the man in the doorway, who I gathered was my uncle. "Three? I thought the doctors said that it was twins." He said. "Well, they did, but they got it wrong. It was triplets." My father said. "B-but, they definitely said it was identical twins." My uncle really was determined to prove that there were only meant to be two children in here. "Arthur! They were right about the identical twins but there was a third baby behind them that they couldn't see on the scans alright. Look, Courtney has one of the twins and the other one's over there, I have the third baby. Who by the way isn't identical to the twins." Yeah, go Dad. Arthur walked over to my other sister, but didn't pick her up, then he turned to look at my mother and the twin she was holding, and then to my father and me. "Right so I'll go and tell the others that they can come up shall I?" He said, now not looking at anyone. "Yes, but not all of them at once, we don't want to overwhelm the girls." My mother said and Arthur left the room, closing the door behind him. My father put me down again and got the other twin to give to my mother, they spent a few minutes working it out so that she could hold both of them, then he came back to me. He sat down in a big armchair next to my mother, who was in a big bed. I looked at my sisters. They were crying in sync and they did look exactly the same. I'd stopped crying ages ago and I didn't plan to start again anytime soon, not that I needed to, with those two crying I would never need to. There was another knock on the door that shocked my sisters into silence. "You can come in dudes." My father called out to them. The door opened and three men walked in. The first in had redish hair, it was short and straight but had one big curl. His eyes were brown and he was wearing a blue uniform of some sort. The second had blonde hair that was neatly swept back and blue eyes, he was wearing a green war uniform. The third had black hair, brown eyes and was wearing, well, I don't know what it was but it was white and had gold and black bits on it. The three of them walked over and greeted my parents. "Alfred, Courtney."Said the second, walking slowly towards us, followed by the third, who simply nodded as a greeting. The first was already by my mother's bedside, looking at the twins with a big grin on his face. "What did you name them? What did you name them?" He said, feeling the need to ask twice. "Italy, calm down dude. The twins there are called Maria and Angelica and this here is..." He paused, "Well, we haven't actually named her yet." I just looked at him with my big blue eyes, not even blinking, no offense to my mother, but he was my favorite parent. "Can I hold one? Please, please." Begged Italy. My mother smiled and handed him one of the twins. "Which one do I have?" He asked her. "You have Angelica." She said, smiling. "Germany, would you like to hold Maria?" Germany was the blonde haired man and he stepped forward to hold Maria. He gently rocked her back and forth, murmuring the words of what I can only assume was a German lullaby, while Italy did the same, only he was slightly louder and speaking in Italian. "Japan, I would offer to let you hold the other baby, but I don't think Alfred's going to give her up anytime soon." My mother said to the third man. "That is fine, I don't think that I would be very good with a baby anyway." He answered. "Well, we should probably go back downstairs now and let someone else come up." Germany said, giving Maria back to my mother. "Awww, do we have to?" Italy said. "Yes." Germany ordered. Italy gave Angelica back to my mother as well and they all left. "We really do need to name her." My mother said, looking at me. "What about... Vanessa?" My father said, we still held each others gazes, neither of us blinking. "Vanessa. Yes. That works nicely, Vanessa Jones." I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and voices talking. "This will be zee most awesome thing ever!" One said, another laughed oddly while a third said something about tomatoes. "Oh no, what idiot sent the bad touch trio up together?" My father said, clutching me ever so slightly closer to him. "Bonjour. One said, bursting through the door, quickly followed by the other two. They started to walk towards my mother and the twins, completely ignoring me. Which, I have to say I was glad about. I would have described them but I didn't get a proper look. I was trying to when I caught the gaze of the man in front. Once we made eye contact he made it impossible for me to look away. He came over to me as the other two went to either side of my mother, she let them hold the twins but my father wouldn't let go of me. "Why won't you let me hold her?" He asked my Father, acting overly innocent. "France, why would I? You're the biggest pervert around here and you really think that I'm just going to hand you my daughter?" He snapped in reply. This sort of conversation continued for a while until France decided to leave. "Prussia, Spain, we're leaving now." He said, heading for the door. One of the men quickly handed back the twin they were holding and followed France, it must have been Prussia because of what France said next. "SPAIN!" France yelled. Spain gave the other twin back ad hurried after France and Prussia as they left the room. "I don't think we should have anybody else up here today, we should at least wait a few days before we introduce the girls to Russia." My mother said once they were gone. "Yeah, you're right." My father said and with that, he locked the door.


	2. The first world meeting

I walked through the huge double doors. I couldn't believe it, my first ever world meeting! I followed my dad to his chair and sat down next to him. I was on the end but one and I wondered who would be sitting there. Maybe Uncle Arthur. I highly doubted that, he'd never really liked me, but I wasn't sure why. He liked my sisters. But then again, I'm very different to them. They run into crowds, follow trends and are basically the most popular kids ever. Where as I run away from crowds, dress differently to everyone else and have no friends at all. All I do is follow dad everywhere and write stories. There not even that good. The good thing is that people can still see me. My dad got scared that they wouldn't be able to, like his brother Canada, but they can, even though I don't socialize much. I can see Canada, I talk to him everyday, but I just say Hi and then we don't talk after that. It's really just to let him know that I can still see him. "Vanessa." My dad pulled me from my thoughts. "Hmm." I looked at him. "Okay, look, I know you're not that social, but people are going to want to talk to you while we're here, so just do your best to actually have conversations." He said, I nodded. "Yes Dad." He smiled. "Good, but you don't have to talk to Prussia, Spain or-" He gulped, "-France." I looked at him, confused. "Why?" I asked. "Because, all three of them are pretty perverted, France most of all, and you're seventeen now so, you're basically a target for them." He said, looking quite uncomfortable, he was okay with the twins talking to them, if anything happened he knew that they could take care of it, but with me, he was right, I was a target. A sitting duck if I wasn't with my dad. Everyone else arrived, I politely greeted them and when everyone was here the meeting started. I was trying to pay attention, but France had been the last one in and had had to sit next to me. Knowing my dad's fear of what he might do to me, I just couldn't focus on what was being said. When it was over people started to move around and merge into little groups. I didn't move, I had no friends, meaning no one to go and talk to. I just got my notepad out and started to write. After about half a page I became aware that France hadn't moved either, and he was watching me write. I looked at him, catching his eye. "What are you writing?" He asked, tilting his head to one side ever so slightly. "It's a novel. It's not very interesting though." I said, amazed that my voice wasn't wavering at all. "Fact or fiction?" He asked, tilting his head slightly further, I don't think he knew he was doing that. "Fiction." I said, amazing myself again, even talking to my dad I would have said 'ummm' before answering. "Ah, interesting, what is it about?" This time he tilted his head the other way, a tiny smile played on the corner of my lips, I didn't let it progress further. "It's about this girl, she's an angel but she can't let anyone know. She was sent down to earth because she had to protect this boy, but the thing is he kind of hates her so she can't get near enough to him to keep him safe so she has to sneak around and follow him and everyone else starts thinking that she's a stalker and umm..." I trailed off as I met his gaze again. While I'd been talking I'd been looking at the notepad so I hadn't seen the look in his eyes change. Before it had been curiosity, but it wasn't anymore, I can't say what it was, it looked like a mixture of lots of different emotions. "Why did you stop?" He said, head still tilted slightly. "I'm sorry." I hung my head, "I-I haven't ever really talked about my stories before, let alone say what they're about." I sighed. I was still talking more confidently than normal, even though I was embarrassed and blushing. "I think I understand." He said. "I'll leave you to write in peace, and don't worry, I won't tell anyone what it's about." He got up. I looked up at him and he winked at me before walking away. This time I let myself smile and went back to writing. "Right, dudes! Now that the meetings over we're gonna have a little party." My dad yelled, putting some music on. There was some grumbling and a chorus of 'do we have to' but soon everyone just started dancing. Badly. I kept writing, singing along when a song I liked came on. All of a sudden a shadow fell over my notepad. "A dance, young lady." I looked up and saw my Uncle. Even though he didn't like me he always came to me first for a dance, I was the best dancer in the family so it wasn't really surprising. "Well, a true lady never turns down a gentlemen when he asks to dance." I said, putting on an overly posh British accent. I closed my notepad and took his hand, he led me to the middle of the dance floor. The dance floor was just the entirety of the next room. We danced, but it was just the type of dance you do when you're about six, so I felt like a complete and utter idiot. Afterwards I just sat on the floor in the corner and watched everyone else having fun and getting drunk. It was so funny to watch Uncle Arthur when he was drunk. By the time people started to leave I was exhausted. I lent my head back onto the wall, letting out a big sigh. I must have dozed off because when I opened my eyes there were only about three people left in the room. I got up to find my dad, but he wasn't here anymore! He must have gotten so drunk that he forgot I was here and went home without me. I got my coat and headed to the front door. It was almost four in the morning and I was scared about walking home by myself. I took a deep breath and went to take the first step into the darkness when someone put their hand on my shoulder. I turned quickly to see France stood there. "I'll walk you home if you want, the streets can get dangerous for a young girl out by herself at this time of night." I nodded, I didn't really want to walk home by myself and, even though I still remembered my dad warning my about him, part of me was glad that it was him that had offered to walk me back. I could talk to him without being scared to and I didn't know why. Maybe it was because my dad had warned me. Me and my sisters were all pretty rebellious, we got it from my dad. I tended to keep the rebellious side of me locked up, keeping to the rules, but maybe it had gotten out this time. But then again, he hadn't said that I couldn't talk to France, just that I didn't have to. I had a private battle over this in my head as me and France stepped out into the cold night. His hands were in his pockets and he stuck his elbow out towards me. I knew what that meant so I linked arms with him. "So.. where exactly do you live?" He asked as we walked down the street together. I laughed and so did he. We were still laughing as we turned the corner, I'd never been this comfortable around anyone this quickly before. It was, interesting.


	3. The secret outing

I went up the steps to the front door, followed by France. "Thank you for walking me home Francis." I said, I'd found out his real name on the way here, it wasn't that different from the name I knew him by anyway. "It's my pleasure. I wouldn't want a pretty girl like you to be out here all on your own at this time." I blushed when he called me pretty, no one ever had before. I got my keys out of my coat pocket, I only had them in case dad forgot his, but I was glad that I had picked them up before we left, even though I knew that dad had his. I played with the house key for a few seconds then, with a sudden rush of courage, reached up onto my tiptoes and pressed my lips onto his. Then I woke up, sitting bolt upright. Even in a dream, why had I done that? I fell back onto my pillow, wondering why I would dream about doing that. That wasn't what had happened. He had walked me home to make sure I got back safely and then when we got here I thanked him, came inside and he went home. I got up and dressed, then I went down stairs for breakfast. I was the first one up, as always, so I made some toast and put the T.V. on. I put a cartoon on and just sat and watched that. It didn't involve much brain power, which after going to bed so late was exactly what I needed. I was in the middle of and episode when the phone rang. I ran to it, don't know why, it was something I always did, run to the phone when it rang or the door when someone knocked. "Hello." I said, after picking up the phone. "Hello Vanessa." It was Arthur, he sounded hungover, not at all surprising. "I'm just calling to ask you if you've seen my right shoe, I didn't have it when I got home last night." I rolled my eyes, pity he couldn't see me. "No uncle, I haven't seen your shoe. You really should be more careful when you start drinking." I said, in quite a lecturing tone of voice. "I know, I know. Well, I have to go and find that shoe. Bye Vanessa." He said. "Bye Uncle, good luck finding the shoe." I said laughing, he hung up, I smiled and put the phone down. About five minutes later it rang again. "Hello." I said, kind of hoping that it was Uncle Arthur again. "Bonjour." "Oh, hi Francis." I let myself smile, knowing he couldn't see me. "I know that your father doesn't me, which is why I called you instead of coming over. You left your notepad in the meeting room." He said. "How did you know that?" I hadn't realized until about ten seconds ago, so how _did_ he know. "I left some papers there, when I went to get them this morning I saw your notepad on the chair. I've got it with me now if you want to come and get it." I bit my lip, my dad never let me go out on my own in case something happened. "I don't know, my dad doesn't like me going out without him." I decided to keep it truthful as opposed to lying to get out of it. "He doesn't have to know you're out. You could put a 'do not disturb' sign on your door. You had a very late night, so I'm sure that he would understand." That, I had to say, was a pretty good idea. "Where are you?" I asked, I heard him chuckle before he answered. "The park near Italy's house." He answered. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes." I said and then I put the phone down. I ran upstairs, stuck the sign on my door and quickly got changed. I had only put sweats on before and I wasn't going out looking like that. I didn't know what to wear so I stuck with jeans and a T-shirt. It was a bit cold so I grabbed a jacket as well. I put it on but left it undone, it wasn't that cold. Then I opened the window, lowered myself using the windowsill, then dropped. I was good with landings, so I didn't hurt myself or fall over after landing. I looked at my watch, I'd said fifteen minutes and I'd already used up seven, giving me eight to get there. I ran the first half of the way there, just to make sure no one would see me, then I walked the rest of the way. I hesitated at the entrance to the park, but I made myself go in, I turned the first corner of the path and saw him sat on a bench. "Francis." I said, he turned to look at me. "Told you I'd be here in fifteen minutes." I smiled. "I never expected fifteen minutes exactly." He smiled back. "Well, I'm very precise." I said, sitting down next to him. "I know." He said. "How?" I tilted my head without realizing. "From this." He held up my notepad. I gasped, snatching it from him, "You read it? It's supposed to be private." "Sorry. If it's any consolation, it's very good. You're a very talented girl." He said, leaning back and staring at the sky. I looked at him, completely astounded. "You liked it?" I asked. "Yes, it's very interesting, the illustrations are very good as well. Though I don't understand how the fit in with the story." The drawings weren't even part of it, they were just what I did when I couldn't think of what to write next. "They aren't supposed to be part of it, I just draw them when I don't know what to write." I was so glad that I had pulled out the drawing of him that I had done yesterday. "Oh, that makes more sense. Either way, they're all very good." He smiled at the sky. "Thank you for giving it back to me." I looked at my feet. "I suppose you should be getting back home now, shouldn't you?" He looked at me. "Yes, I suppose I should." I said, getting up. "I hope to see you again soon." He said as I walked away. "I hope so to." I said as I turned the corner. "Although I doubt you will." I whispered to myself as I left the park.


	4. The hatch in the roof

Turns out there was a floor in my plan. I hadn't thought of how I was going to get back into my room. "Pssst. Vanessa." Angelica was leaning out of her window. "Angel, you're gonna fall." I said, running to where I would be able to catch her if she did fall. "Nah, I won't. Where have you been? Have you been with a boy?" I fought to not blush, I won, it wasn't easy, but I did. "I just went to get my notepad back." I said, it wasn't lying, I did go to get my notepad back. "Then why the secrecy?" She raised one eyebrow at me, I hated it when she did that. "Look, help me get back in and I'll tell you everything, you just have to promise not to tell anyone else okay." She wavered when I said that, wanting to know, but also wanting to be able to gossip about it. "Fine." She finally decided that her need to know was greater than her need to gossip about it. "Okay, so, go around to Maria's window and climb up that tree, you can't get into Maria's window, but you can get to the roof. Once you get onto the roof, move the box, you'll find a hatch that leads directly into my room." She said. "Wow, I did not know about that." I said as I started walking. "No body does, so keep it a secret." She closed the window. I started to climb the tree, Maria's curtains weren't open, so I didn't have to worry about her seeing me. I jumped onto the roof and moved the box. Then I opened the hatch. It opened right on top of Angelica's wardrobe. I hopped down and closed the hatch. Then I got off the wardrobe. "Well that was fast, even I can't get in here that quickly, and it's my room." I grinned and then sat on the end of the bed. "So, spill all." She said, leaning forward. I started to tell her everything, starting from dad warning me about France, him sitting next to me at the meeting, me being able to talk to him, him walking me home, the dream, the phone call and the secret meeting in the park. When I was finished she sat back. "So you spoke to him for the first time less than twenty four hours ago and all of this has already happened. It's like a sped up version of Romeo and Juliet. Only he's a perv and there's a bigger age gap. Dad's not gonna be happy about this you know." She was always so helpful at times like this. "I know, that's why I was planning not to tell him about any of this." I raised my eyebrows at her, she knew what it meant, it meant 'you tell him and I kill you'. "Okay, so we know what we're doing about dad, we're not telling him. But what are you going to do about France?" She said, I bit my lip."I don't know what I can do. If I keep sneaking out to see him he might think that I want a relationship or something, and I don't, but I don't just want to cut him off completely. He's the first person that I found I can really talk to." I stopped and looked at my hands. "You're talking to me right now, and you're not stuttering or added 'umm' every other syllable." She was right, I wasn't. But then, we were talking about France. "It must be because we're talking about him." "Hmmmm. Well, I don't know what to do in this situation. I know what I would do if it were me or Maria, but, you're a whole different kettle of fish." She started chewing her hair. "What would you do if it were you or Maria?" I looked at her. "I'd go and kiss the guy, bring him home and tell dad that I don't care if he likes him or not, there's no way I'm going to stop seeing him unless it was on my terms." "Yeah, you're right, I'm a whole different kettle of fish." I directed my gaze out of the window, I thought I saw France so I got up and walked to the window. Then he turned his head and looked at me, it was France. I nearly fell over and Angelica ran to the window. She looked at France, then at me, then back at France. "Yeah, if you were a little older then you two would make the cutest couple ever!" she said, clasping her hands together. The noise I made then can only be described as a squeak, but I don't think it really was one. I wanted to glare at her, but for some reason I couldn't, I was forcing myself to keep my gaze fixed on France. He kept walking, but kept looking at me anyway. Just before he turned the corner out of the street he winked at me. I felt my face flood scarlet as he turned out of the street. Angelica looked at me. "You really have got it bad, haven't you?" She said, and all I could do was nod.


	5. How hard can it be?

"You know what you have to do, right?" Angelica asked. I shook my head, still unable to speak. I wondered when I would get the power of speech back. "You have to cut off the connection between you and him, you have to never speak to him unless absolutely necessary." The power of speech came back to me. "How?" I asked, so the speech was a little quiet, I could live with that. "Well, for one thing, no more sneaking out to see him, that will only make matters worse. And I don't think you should go to another world meeting." She put her arm around me as I sighed. "What do I tell dad about the meetings?" She thought for a moment, "You could just tell him that it wasn't really your thing, that there were too many people there after all." "That, might work." I said quietly. "Forget might, you're his princess, the one of us that was different, there's no way he wouldn't believe you, or make you go if you didn't want to." She was actually being reassuring, which for her was surprising. "Anyway, that's not the part we need to focus on. You need to focus on ignoring France. Never be the one to answer the phone, just in case it's him. Maybe we should get caller ID, so dad doesn't get suspicious." She really was good at this sneaking around lark. "You just need to get a hobby, or start a project, so that anytime you start to think about him, or want to see him, you just go and do that instead." She was brilliant at this. "How do you know all of this?" I asked, my volume was starting to return to normal. That was a good thing. "I read." I raised my eyebrows at her, she only had about four books in the entire room. She couldn't say reading was the key because I had hundreds of books that I had read tons of times, and I had no idea what to do in this situation. "I read these." She answered my unspoken words by lifting a huge pile of magazines onto the bed, I now understood how she knew and lowered my eyebrows. "Look, you go to your room and, I don't know, listen to music or something, I'll look through these and see if I can find anything helpful." I got up while she picked up the first magazine. I left while she looked through it. I went into my room and put my notepad on the desk, I opened it and tried to think of something to write. I still couldn't believe that France had read it and, actually liked it. It was loosely based around my life. The angel girl had no friends because she was different to everyone else and the boy she was supposed to keep safe hated her. In the part I'd started to write last she had finally gotten to talk to the boy properly, when she had started to leave the boy explained that he didn't hate her anymore, but he would have to act like he did in front of all of his friends so that they didn't think he was an idiot. I started writing. In this chapter she started to develop feelings for him, but the angel laws state that you aren't allowed to be the protector of someone that you love, so she was withdrawn from her post. From then on she was never allowed to see him again, it broke her heart, but she knew that she had to obey the rules. She thought about sneaking out to see him a few times but she could never work up enough courage to actually do it. She just had to struggle through each day, knowing that without her he could be killed, she had no way of finding out if he had been given a new protector, so she would never know if he was truly safe. Thinking of this drove her to tears, every night she would cry herself to sleep thinking about him, but what she didn't know is that every time an angel falls asleep thinking of someone that person dreams of them, so every night he saw her in his dreams. He would wake up thinking of her and some times it would make him started misbehaving at school, getting more detentions every day. No one had any idea what was causing him to do all the bad things that he did, not even his new protector. I turned the page to carry on and found a folded up piece of paper. I unfolded it, it was a note. It read: Dear Vanessa, You are all I've been able to think about since I sat down next to you at the world meeting. I want to be with you, but I know that you are too young, you're only seventeen after all. But I'm willing to wait for you. I'll wait as long as it takes for you to be mine. Francis Bonnefoy. I read it through eight or nine times, then I threw myself onto my bed, weeping. He was willing to wait for me, but I didn't know if I would ever be ready for him. Oh, how was I supposed to cut him out of my life now? This was going to be the hardest thing I would ever have to do. I would have to tell the man who loved me, the man that I was finding myself loving more every second that passed, that I could never see him again. I may as well just rip my heart into a million tiny pieces, because that was basically what I was doing anyway. This was going to hurt.


	6. Yep, it hurt

I showed Angelica the note later in the day and we decided that the best way to break the connection would be to tell him face to face. Before we had thought that maybe it would be better over the phone, or maybe through someone else, but now we knew, I had to do it myself and it had to be in person. This was going to hurt. I didn't know who it would hurt more, me or him. After looking at the note it would probably be him, but it was going to hurt so much to bring myself to tell him. I could imagine the look on his face when I told him, I could play the whole thing out in my head. It was weird how much I had managed to get to know him, just while he was walking me home last night. We hadn't had to walk far but we had still managed to find out so much about each other. I felt like I'd known him forever, but then, he was there the day I was born. I remembered that day so well. How Uncle Arthur had refused to believe that there were three of us, how Italy was so excited, the song that Germany had murmured to Maria, Prussia's voice from the corridor, how my dad wouldn't let go of me as I stared into France's eyes, so deep into his eyes that it felt as though I could have seen his soul if I had really wanted to. And how he had really wanted to hold me, why didn't you let him hold me dad? Because you're a great big idiot, that's why. I actually smacked myself in the head when I thought that, he hadn't done anything wrong, he was just trying to keep me safe, he was doing his job. "Why did you just hit yourself?" I'd forgotten that I was still in the same room as Angelica, and that she had no idea what I was thinking about. "Uhhh, I, umm. I started disliking my thoughts." I didn't want to admit it, but I didn't know what to explain it with other than the truth. "Okay then. Oh, dad's up." She said as we heard footsteps going down the stairs, well, going down most of the stairs, with about four to go he fell, so we heard that instead. "Should we..?" I asked, pointing at the door, "Nah, he'll be fine." Angelica really was so caring. I smiled. We discussed tactics of news breaking all afternoon, then we had to go down for dinner. Dad was sat on the sofa, still to hungover to eat anything, Maria was sat next to him, and Canada was on the other sofa. "Uncle Matty!" I yelled, I ran to the sofa, jumped onto it, ran across it, fell to my knees and threw my arms around him. He was the uncle that I was closest to, even if we didn't speak much, I was more like him than my Dad or England, (Although as my outburst just then had proved, I was a little like my dad), and he let me call him Matty even though his name's Matthew. "Hello Vanessa." He said, patting my shoulder. "Uncle Matty, I'm not being rude, but what are you doing here? I thought you had a meeting today." I pulled back, sitting on my feet. "I did, but none of them could see me, so I was able to just slip out, besides, I have some news for you girls." Maria changed sofas and Angelica came and sat on the floor. "I've managed to get all three of you scholarships to the best collage I know of." He said, pulling three brochures out of his jacket and handing them to us, "World collage. I've never heard of it before." Maria said, opening the brochure. "It's for personifications of countries of cities." He said. "But Uncle Matty, we're not personifications." I opened my brochure, reading through the first page slowly. "Not at the moment, but when you get there you might find out that you are. For example, because she's the eldest, I have a feeling that Maria may well be the personification of New York." He gestured to Maria, "You two however, I have no idea about." He gestured to me and Angelica. I suddenly realized what this meant, if I went there then I wouldn't have to cut France out, I would just be going to collage, no big deal. "How long would we be there for?" I couldn't help asking. "Well, that would depend, countries spend longer than cities, but some cities are there for five or six years." Perfect, I just had to hope that I actually was a personification, which I had never wanted to be before. "When would we be leaving? If we wanted to go, that is." Angelica asked for me, after we shared a look that said I'd realized that I would have to go. "In three days, I know that it's short notice, but this was the soonest they would give me the scholarships for you girls." Me and Angelica shared another look, grinning with our eyes but keeping our faces composed. I had the perfect escape, there was no way I could turn this down. We turned to look at Maria, she was looking at us with a 'please say you guys want to go as well' look, we gave a her a 'duh' look in return and she smiled. She turned to Canada, "We'll go, all three of us." He looked at me and Angelica, in case Maria was choosing for us, we both nodded enthusiastically. In three days we would be off for collage, France would be automatically cut out, and for a perfectly normal reason. All I had to do was tell him, this version was going to be so much easier. All I had to do was say, "Francis, I'm going to collage, I'll be back in a few years, but until then we won't be able to see each other.", it would probably still hurt him, but nowhere near as badly as it would just saying, "You can never talk to me or see me again." So I was actually doing him a favor here. We had our dinner, it was sandwiches, we couldn't be bothered to do anything else, chattering excitedly about going off to collage in three days. Then, once we had finished, we went upstairs to start packing. That's all that we did for the next two days, the third we spent with our family. Arthur and Matthew were there, and so were Italy, Germany and Japan. They weren't technically family, but we didn't mind. They all left at about four in the afternoon and dad called us to the sofas, "If there are any friends that you want to say goodbye to, you can either phone them or go and see them now if you want to." He said to us. "Thanks dad." Maria and Angelica said together. Angelica threw me a look that said, 'you need to tell France' and I gave her one that said, 'shut up, I will'. "Thank you dad." I said, giving him a big hug, "I won't be long, there's just one person I need to say bye to." I got up and walked to the door, glancing back at him before I left the room. When I got into the hall, Angelica was already standing there with the phone in her hand, her arm out stretched to hand it to me. I took it, ran upstairs to my room so dad wouldn't hear me and dialed the number. It rang a few times while I chewed my lip. Then he answered. "Bonjour." He said, oh that accent made my knees go weak, I sat down. "Hi Francis, it's me, look can you be at the park near Italy's in five minutes, there's something I need to tell you." I waited for a moment, the silence was unnerving me, "I can be there in three minutes." I smiled, "Then I guess I'll see you in three minutes." "I guess you will." He hung up. I ran downstairs, practically threw the phone at Angelica, grabbed my jacket and raced out the door. "Vanessa, wait up." She yelled, running after me, she caught up with me easily enough, even though I was sprinting. "So I'm guessing he said he would meet you." She said. "Yep, I have two minutes to get there, and what are you doing, you're not coming." I sped up slightly, so did she, we were evenly matched on both speed and stamina. She started to laugh, "Oh yes I am, and there's nothing you can do to stop me." I laughed, "Oh fine, whatever, just don't get in the way or but in." We ran round the corner, dodging around China, who was walking quite slowly for him. "Sorry!" Me and Angelica yelled in sync, speeding up again. We ran into the park, slowing to a walk as we got to the turn in the path. We saw France on the bench, looked at each other, and for some unknown reason both exploded into laughter. France quickly turned to look and saw us. I could hardly breath due to laughter, but I managed to wave at him. He grinned and shook his head at us. I managed to compose myself, remembering the seriousness of this meeting. Angelica was still laughing, so I elbowed her in the ribs to shut her up. It worked. We both went and sat down next to France. "So what was it that you needed to tell me?" He asked. "Oh, right, that. Well, the thing is, me and my sisters are going off to collage in the morning and I wanted to say goodbye." I decided to get it over quickly, no need to drag it out. "Collage. For how long?" He asked, staring at the sky with a blank look in his eyes, I doubted he was even looking at anything. "I'm not sure, Uncle Matty said that it depends on where you represent, but I don't think I represent anywhere." It was true, Maria and Angelica had always thought that they should represent somewhere, but I had never felt that. "Of course you will, you just don't know it yet." France told me. He got up and walked forward a few paces, I got up and followed him. He turned to face me when I stood next to him. He took my face in his hands and lent down to kiss me. His lips were only a few millimeters from mine when I took a step back. His hands stayed in the air where I had been, I clamped mine over my mouth, shaking my head slowly, panic in my eyes. Angelica stood up, knowing what I would end up doing before I did. "Vanes-" France started, "No." I cut him off. He stepped towards me and I took off, ducking under his arm and running faster than I ever had before, he went to run after me, but Angelica stopped him, coming after me herself. I stopped after I had run through a few streets, she caught up after a couple of minutes. When she found me I was leaning against a fence, barely holding myself up. She walked towards me and wrapped me in a big hug. I sobbed into her shoulder, "I-I never thought he would try to..." I couldn't finish the sentence, I was sobbing too much. "I don't think even he thought he would." I fell to my knees, she went down with me, arms still around me. I'd thought that it would be easier just telling him I was going to collage, but he'd just made everything so hard, and yep, it hurt.


	7. New York, LA and Las Vegas

"So this is your room." Tokyo said. We'd just met her. She was the person who showed new students where everything was and she was the first person that we had met when we got here, she was Japan's little sister, and so she was the capital city. She'd already showed us where all of the classrooms were and now she was showing us our room. The three of us were to share as we were sisters. "I'll leave you to get comfortable. Oh, and because you're all personifications you have to wear a certain outfit everyday. The outfits that will now be yours forever are on your beds. Hope you like them." She opened the door and left us on our own. We went in to find that there were bunk beds and a third bed. The beds had our suitcases on them so that we would know whose was whose. They also had the outfits that Tokyo had said were there and a label stating where we represented. Maria, as Canada had suspected, was the personification of New York, Angelica was L.A. and I was Las Vegas. The city known for one night stands, getting so drunk that you marry strangers and gambling was what I was the personification of. I couldn't believe it. "Vanessa, what city are you?" Maria asked. "I'm Las Vegas." I said, turning around, my eyes wide in shock. "That has to be a mistake." Angelica said, "Dad said they never make mistakes." Maria said. "Well, maybe I'll feel more Vegas like with the outfit on." I said, grinning despite my shock, I picked up the outfit and headed for the bathroom. Maria and Angelica got changed in the room, while I changed in the bathroom. Maria's outfit was made up of, tight fitting black leather trousers, a lose sleeveless top with the American flag on it, and sneakers, also with the flag on them. We discovered that when you put the outfit on your hair automatically changes to match. Hers changed to cheerleader hair, two ponytails with massive scrunchies. She looked really cool. Angelica had tight, short shorts, a long sleeved top that revealed her stomach and high heels. Her hair became slightly curly, and she got a side fringe, so it was quite casual. Our personalities changed slightly as well. Well, their's changed slightly, mine changed a lot. I had very clingy trousers, they were covered in glitter and were bright green. I had a pink glittery top that was also very clingy. It had short sleeves and was cropped to half way up my stomach. I also had a glittery green top hat, it was one of those mini ones that girls wear, and a glittery green walking stick type thing and glittery green high heels. Basically everything was made of glitter. My hair changed to crimped, when people say that their hair has volume, they have no idea, it must have stuck out about half a foot in every direction, but I loved in. Instead of being shy and modest I felt more confident than ever, I wanted to break all the rules and kiss guys, I wanted to be the rebel that I'd never gotten to be before. So that was why I was Vegas. I had everything you needed to be Vegas all along, but I had never shown it. Now it was all being let out, I think even the devil wanted to run. I opened the bathroom door and walked out to show my sisters. "Wow." Angelica dropped the dress she was folding. Maria's mouth fell open. "I know, it's really cool. It's making me feel really rebellious, like I want to know all the rules just so that I can break them." I said, the words rushing out. There was a light in my eyes that had never been there before. "I guess it really wasn't a mistake, you are Las Vegas." Maria said, smiling slightly. I burst out laughing. "I just feel so AWESOME!" I yelled falling backwards onto my bed. "It's quite a revealing outfit though, are you sure you're comfortable with that? I know dad won't be when he sees you." Angelica asked, bending down to pick up the dress. "I'm way more comfortable with it than I thought I would be, I actually really like it. It's.. fun." I said, jumping up, making my hair bounce around and sending glitter flying everywhere. "Well, it's certainly eye catching. You'll be like a disco ball when you go outside." Maria said and we all started laughing. Just then we heard a bell ring. "We gotta go or we'll be late for class, we don't want to late for our first ever lesson here, that would not be good." Angelica said, heading for the door. Me and Maria followed. The twins attracted a lot of attention, for being new and for what they were wearing and where they represented, but it was nothing compared to the attention I got. I found myself flirting with boys I didn't even know. When I caught one staring at me I fluttered my now massive eyelashes at him and another I winked at. I didn't even realize that I was doing it until after I'd done it. If I kept that up then I was going to get in serious trouble, but that was a gamble I found myself very willing to take. I guess I'd be taking a lot of gambles now that I was Las Vegas. This was going to be fun.


	8. The nullified note

We met loads of people in our first few days there. I instantly became the school flirt, but it felt like the perfect role for me, surprisingly. I didn't know that it was possible for me to act like this, but my dad would hate me now. His little timid princess flirting with any boy she met. I wasn't even doing it on purpose, I just did it unknowingly. But it was kind of fun. Everyone back home said that France held the record of how many people you could flirt with in one day, I figured that if I kept this up then I might just beat him. Let's face it, I'm Vegas. Vegas is supposed to be known for gambling, taking risks and one night stands. The first two I'm fine with, the third, not so much. But maybe the idea would grow on me, after all, I was getting better at being Vegas every day. Much to the surprise of my sisters. The first person I had met as Vegas was Paris. He was France's nephew, so it just seemed right for him to be the first to meet me. He was a lot like his uncle, so I hoped that his reaction to me would help me picture France's. His reaction was, a normal greeting, a wink and about ten minutes later, as a walked away, his hand on my butt. So I slapped him and walked off. I may be flirty like this, but I was not going to stand for that sort of behavior. Luckily I was still smart, and I still like to write. So I was able to do the work, despite being distracted by a boy more than once, and work on my own story. I finished the work we were set quickly, it was about the war between England and America when America wanted his independence. He was my dad, so I'd heard the story about a million times. Suddenly there was a tap on my shoulder, I turned around, instinctively shutting my notepad. "Hello, umm, Vegas, right?" The girl asked, with a very strong British accent, 'must be London' I thought. I nodded. "I'm London, I wondered if you could just help me with this one answer, I normally know this topic, but today it's just gone." She pleaded. "Yeah, sure. It's right there." I said, lifting up my paper so that she could see it. "Thank you." She said, going back to her work. I reopened my notepad and started to write again. It wasn't long before I found France's note again. I'd just shoved it in a different page of the notepad. I read it, with a sad smile on my face. He was in love with the girl that was shy and timid, and didn't speak much. I wasn't her anymore. I was the flirt now. The version of me that would just go up to a total stranger and just start talking to them, the version that would have let France kiss her in the park. But not the version that he had fallen in love with, so the note was pointless now. I wanted to screw it up into a little ball and throw it away, but I couldn't bring myself to. I put it back in my notepad, only this time I put it in the back page, so that I would know where it was and it wouldn't surprise me when I saw it next time. Then I got back to writing. In the part that I was writing now the boy was starting to think about suicide, so in order to save him his new protector had to go to the angel girl and get her to go and see him. She got back as he was about to kill himself and managed to stop him. There was a big reunion chapter and then the angel leaders came down to take her away. They had a big argument and eventually she was allowed to stay, but she had to give up her angelic powers. The boy didn't want her to have to do that for him but she did anyway. When he asked why she explained that she would rather be with him and be human than be without him and be an angel. So they stayed together, and I was done with my story. Pretty good timing on my part, as the lunch bell went as I added the final full stop. I went and sat with my sisters and Tokyo. She didn't have any friends when we got here, so we made her our friend. She didn't really fit in with us, but we were all happy to have her there and she seemed happy enough to be there. So she stayed with us. London started to hang round with us sometimes, and I gained quite a few stalkers thanks to my new flirting skills, so we were never lonely and it never got boring. I managed to transfer one or two of my stalkers on to my sisters, which I must say, they weren't too pleased with, but they got over it soon enough. One stalker that I just couldn't shake was Paris, typical really. The nephew of the man that loved me was my main stalker. Just a hint of irony there, don't you think? It was actually quite good entertainment for me, though I wasn't entirely sure why. I just found it fun knowing that he was watching me, and getting a lot of detentions because of it. It was far more fun to confront him about it though. One time he'd been following me for an hour and a half and I was getting pretty sick of it, so I turned around to face him and said, "Are you ever going to speak to me or are you just going to follow me around all day?" He turned bright red, not knowing what to say. Then he just turned around and walked away. It was quite funny. At least it was to me anyway, I don't think it was very funny to him, but never mind. I was pretty much a bad girl after being Vegas for less than a week, and from then on I only got worse, much, much worse.


	9. Dancing for stalkers

"You've been in detention every day for the entire year. When I gave your uncle those scholarships I had no idea that you would be quite so much trouble." The headteacher was lecturing me again. I got a lecture like this at the end of every term, but as it was the end of the year this one was extra special. By extra special I just mean longer and more boring. I stopped listening after half an hour. It just went on for so long, I couldn't be bothered to listen. "You weren't anywhere near as bad last year, you got into trouble quite a lot, but this year you've taken things a little too far. What have you got to say for yourself?" I thought for a minute, what did I have to say for myself. I smiled as I came up with the perfect thing to say. "I'm Vegas baby, what did you expect?" So calling the headteacher 'baby' nearly got me kicked out, and it would have done if I hadn't been bored enough to read my scholarship brochure through one night. Turns out no one was allowed to kick me out, they weren't all that pleased when I showed them that though. They'd been waiting for an excuse to kick me out for months now. None of the teachers had really liked me during my first year, but throughout this second year they had all grown to despise me. Not that I cared though, it didn't matter to me. Nothing did anymore, not really. My sisters still did, of course, but there wasn't much else. I didn't even have anyone to really flirt with anymore, having successfully flirted with every boy in school. Paris still stalked me, but not as frequently as before, but there was a big end of year party coming up. They held one every other year, we didn't have one during my first year, but there would be one this year. To most girls, this meant that they could go with a group of friends or their boyfriend, but to me, it meant a chance to renew my stalkers. On the day of the dance we were all given a different outfit, it was the one that we would wear to any party if we didn't want to wear our normal clothes. Mine was green glittery shorts and a pink glittery tank top that was cropped to show my stomach. I also got green glittery sneaker style wedges, but no top hat or walking stick this time. Oh well, I could live without them. I added some extra glitter into my hair and set off for the dance. I did manage to gain some stalkers back, and nearly kill Paris, with my dancing. Paris got a nose bleed when watching me dance, it was quite extreme and he had to be carted to the nurse because of blood loss. Both sad and very amusing at the same time. The day after the dance we were all told that we could go home for the holidays this year, we hadn't been able to last year because the road leading to the school was being redone. They took seven months on it and it's not even very good. There was an excited wave of whispering around the students, me Maria and Angelica just shared a look. We knew that dad would be pleased with what those to had turned out to represent, but he would hate mine. But then again, it probably would be better to let him know sooner rather than later. When he got to the school two days later Maria and Angelica went out to see him first, so that they could prepare him for when he saw me. They told him that I was the personification of Vegas and that my personality had changed quite drastically to fit the role. When he was prepared I walked out to say hi and he nearly fell over. I just stood there for a few minutes to let him get over the shock of it, then I gave him a hug to show that it really was still me, I was just very different now. The headteacher walked out of the building just then, and started heading straight for us. "Oh no." I groaned. Dad just looked at me as the headteacher got closer. "Are you her father?" He asked, glaring at me with pure evil in his eyes. Well, I don't think it was actually evil, just hatred. "Yes, yes I am." Dad answered, standing up as tall as he could. That was good news, it meant that he was still going to stick up for me, despite all my changes. "Well then I think that you should know, your daughter has been in detention every day for the entire year." He was determined to make that a bigger deal than it was. "Well what do you expect, she's the personification of Vegas. Vegas is known for trouble, and getting married to strangers when drunk," He turned to me, "Which, by the way, you're never going to do." I shook my head. Drunken marriage wasn't something that I ever wanted to do, so he had nothing to worry about. The headteacher was speechless, he hadn't expected that dad would just brush it off as a personality quirk, not knowing what to say he simply turned around and went back indoors. We all got in the car. "Well, something tells me Canada's not gonna be as comfortable around you any more." dad said as he drove out of the school grounds. I shook my head. "And there's a world meeting in a few days. Now that you're all cities you can really take part in it." I thought about that for a minute, thinking that it could be fun, then I sat bolt upright as I remembered something. France would be there, I would have to talk to him as Vegas. We'd already established that I couldn't really control my actions around boys, so what if I started flirting with France. Oh this was going to be painfully awkward.


	10. Letting France know

"Right so we have three new cities joining us at this meeting, they've all been here before, but not as the personifications that they are now." We heard dad explaining to everyone else that we were going to be there. "Okay. You knew them as Maria and Angelica, but now they're New York and L.A." Maria and Angelica went in and there was a small round of applause as they took their seats. "And Vanessa, is now Las Vegas." I walked in and saw a few jaws drop, France's included. I took my seat, turning it so that my back was facing France, luckily I was able to make it look like I was just trying to get a better view of my dad, if I hadn't been able to do that I would have just looked like a freak. Not that I didn't already, with my sticky-out hair and tiny green top hat. We had a party after the meeting, just like at my first one. I started to wonder if they did this so often that it was on the agenda. Last time I had had to be dragged onto the floor by my uncle, and then after the one song I ran away again, but this time I was in the middle of the floor, the most enthusiastic one there. I was singing along at the top of my lungs and I danced with practically every guy there. Not France though, I didn't want to face him just yet. I managed to get Angelica dancing with Spain. She had a little bit of a crush on him, which I majorly took advantage of. He wasn't a very good dancer, but I really doubt that either of them cared. So apparently I was a pretty good matchmaker, I'd got a few people together at collage, although they normally did something they regretted doing afterwards and blaming me for it. Well, let's face it, Vegas is known for making people do things they regret. I didn't really want to dance anymore, so I stole my sisters away from their dancing partners, Angelica had had about nine songs dancing with Spain anyway, and we went onstage and sang our really cool mash up. We would get bored a lot at collage, so when we had nothing to do, we would make mash ups, sing them, and pretend that we were on stage. We even had dances for each one. I did all of the power notes, because I had more power, Angelica got the high notes and Maria got the lower ones. When all three of us sang together it sounded pretty good. I was also the one that got the crowds behind us, and whenever I moved I sent a small shower of glitter raining down onto the audience. The funniest thing was, we managed to get Spain and Prussia up there with us. We needed some boys to sing, and they shoved everyone else out of the way to get on the stage. They were actually pretty good, if you ignored Prussia's accent, and when they were trying to copy our dance moves it was priceless. I seriously hope someone was filming it because I would love to put Spain and Prussia trying to dance online. I was trying not to burst out laughing while I was singing because of it, so watching it back I would have no chance. I would probably die of laughter. After a while we had to kick them off, we just couldn't concentrate on singing while they were trying to dance. We got Germany and Italy up on stage instead. Germany didn't want to be there but when he tried to get off of the stage I grabbed him by the collar and practically threw him to the back of the stage with a 'you will stay up here until I say otherwise' look on my face. He stayed after that. Although he did try to throw a grenade at me. So I punched him. In the face. I was a lot more violent like this. It felt pretty good to just hit someone every now and again. The good thing was whenever he tried to hit me I could hit him, and make it look like part of the dance. Two birds with one stone. Ah I love efficiency. We had to kick him off, and Italy decided to go with him. The next people we got onstage were Japan and China. We thought it would be good to get Japan onstage because we were about to do our anime mash up, we used the actual dances and he knew all of them, so he could dance along. China came onstage because no one else would. They left when we finished that mash up and this time they were the ones who chose who came onstage. They chose three people, Russia, which was both funny and terrifying, I felt so sorry for Angelica as she was the one that had to dance with him, Romano, which Maria quite enjoyed, to her dismay, and France. Since he was the third one to get onstage, he was the one that I had to dance with. I cringed as he was walking up the steps, but I was performing, so I pushed how uncomfortable I was out of my mind and just started singing. France was surprisingly easy to dance with. Not many people can keep up with me when I'm on a roll, but he could, and he seemed to know the steps. They might not have been the ones that I had imagined would be taken when this dance included two people, but they worked well, fitting perfectly with the moves I was making. He was the perfect dance partner, for me anyway. At the end of that mash up Maria and Romano were practically kissing, Angelica was somehow wearing Russia's scarf, and France had done that really cheesy thing where at the end of a dance the man grabs the girl by the waist and lowers her halfway to the floor. I hadn't even realized what he was doing until the music faded completely. I yelped and pushed him away, falling to the floor as I did so. He fell the other way. "Ow." I moaned, sitting up and rubbing the back of my head. Angelica gave Russia back his scarf and ran to help me up. Maria came over to me as well. I got up and went over to France, "What was that!" I yelled at him, the atmosphere in the room changed as he looked up at me, trying to think of something to say that wouldn't make me hit him. At this point anything he said was going to result in me hitting him, so I just waited. "Uhh..." Was all he said, so I hit him and stormed off, grabbing my jacket and going out into the street. He followed me and I started running. I started running across the road, unaware that a car was coming. "Vanessa!" I heard France yell as the headlights approached quickly. I froze. The car came closer and I screamed as I heard the squeal of breaks.


	11. I got hit

My body slammed to the floor as the car screeched to a holt. In seconds France was by my side, grabbing my hand. I was aware of everyone else coming outside, my sisters running towards me. The driver got out of the car. "I didn't see her, she just ran out into the road." He yelled. Everyone ignored him, to worried about me. "Vanessa, Vanessa can you hear me? Look at me, come on, open your eyes. Please, please just do something." France gabbled. I struggled to open my eyes, pain shooting through me when I tried to move. "No, don't move, just lie still okay, you'll be okay, I'm here, I'm right here you're gonna be fine. Somebody call an ambulance." He yelled. Maria already had her phone out and was dialing. "Where are you hurt?" He really was panicking about me. I managed to work up enough strength to speak. "Everywhere." I moaned. It was barely audible. I was suddenly aware that I was bleeding. No one else had noticed, but I could feel it. I moved my hand to my side, feeling the growing wet patch on my top. I pulled my hand away again, my fingers were covered in blood. I let out a small sob, feeling pain shoot through me again. France's eyes went wide when he saw the blood on my fingers. "No, no no no." He said, putting as much pressure on the wound as he could. "It's fine, you'll be fine. You're gonna be okay, I promise." He was nearly crying. I felt a tear escape from my own eye as I looked at him, both of us terrified that I was going to die. Just then the ambulance arrived. The paramedics came over and started asking all these questions while checking me over. I couldn't answer, so France answered for me. I started crying when they made him let go of my hand. "No, you can't take him away from me, I need him." I protested, but it was nothing more than a whisper, so nobody heard me. They put me on a stretcher and carted me towards the ambulance. France ran after me, he'd been talking to a policeman but had come after me even though they had said they needed him to answer the questions right away. He grabbed my hand again as soon as he was close enough, he didn't stop talking to me the entire way to the hospital. When we got there the doors opened and they started to move me. Everything started spinning, I gripped his hand tighter, but then paramedics made me let go. They weren't letting him come with me. I reached out to him, but he wasn't there. He tried to come after me, but they were restraining him. I heard him yelling my name as I plunged into blackness.


	12. Waking up

I didn't know where I was, I couldn't see anything, it was too dark. But I could hear something. In the midst of all the darkness I could hear a voice. I strained to listen, gasping as I realized that it was France. He was talking to someone, but I didn't know who. I couldn't hear them, only him, but where was he? "Francis!" I yelled. "Francis, where are you?" He wasn't listening to me, completely blocking me out. "Francis." I said, a lot quieter than before. Then I suddenly felt as though I was moving, being pulled into another universe, being pulled back to reality. Light surrounded me, and I could still hear France speaking, his voice was clearer now, and louder as well. I struggled to open my eyes, it felt as though my eyelids were glued shut. "Francis." I whispered, finally getting to see him. He immediately fell silent, turning slowly, as if he were scared that he was imagining it and I wasn't awake at all. But I was. He rushed to my side, grabbing my hand. "I can't believe you're awake. You're finally awake." He said, his voice cracking. "Francis, wha-what happened?" I was finding it hard to get the words out, every breath hurt a little. "You got hit by a car, so now you're in hospital." He said, brushing my hair out of my face with the back of his hand. "H-how long was I o-out?" I asked, he probably didn't want to answer my questions, but I needed to know. He'd said 'finally awake', that had to mean that I'd been out for a while. "Three and a half weeks. You had internal injuries, so they had to operate on you. I was starting to get scared that you weren't going to wake up. Scared that I was going to lose you." A tear rolled down his face, I reached up and wiped it away with my thumb. "Like I would ever leave you, not for good anyway." I said, as reassuringly as I could. Just then my dad walked in, my sisters following close behind. I pulled my hand away from France's face, knowing my father would probably be unhappy enough knowing that he was the one who was with me when I woke up. "Hey dad." I said, forcing a smile onto my face. He walked over to me, he looked like he wanted to hold my hand, but one had a load of tubes in it and France was holding the other one. "I'm so glad you're awake, how do you feel?" He asked. "Bruised." I replied. I tried to sit up, wincing, I felt France's hand on my shoulder, gently pressing me back down to the bed. "You'll strain yourself." He said, I heard my dad grit his teeth as I nodded slightly. "I wish I could hug you right now, but I don't think it would be a very smart move on my part." Said Angelica, smiling at me. Maria just stood at the foot of the bed, like she was stopping any intruders from getting to me. She was in protective big sister mode, it was sort of funny to watch. They stayed and chatted to me for a while, telling me how worried everyone had been since the meeting. After about an hour Angelica said that she had to go and meet a friend, when my dad asked if she could cancel she said that it was a friend that she'd met at collage and that they didn't come over here very often, so no. I told them that it was fine, and she left. Maria and my dad followed soon after. My dad was trying to get France to leave as well, but there was no chance of that happening. According to them he'd been sleeping in the chair by my bed, just in case I woke up in the night. He wanted to be with me when I did wake up, so if he did leave it was only for two or three minutes, then he was back again. So he still loved me, even though I'd changed so much. I made up my mind there and then that I would recover quickly, so that we could be together in a not 'hospital patient and visitor' way. But it wasn't going to be easy, not at all.


	13. Recovery

"I managed to walk today." I said happily to my dad. It had been two weeks since I'd woken up and I'd managed to walk through the ward and back to my bed. France had been with me, his hand on my elbow to help me keep my balance. But I think I did it all myself, nearly. My dad wasn't very happy when I said that France was the one that helped me, he wasn't happy with him being near me at all. He hated the fact that it was France that had been the one who came with me in the ambulance or the fact that it was France who had been sleeping in the hospital and he especially hated that it was France who was with me when I woke up. But I didn't care, and they both knew that, so France stayed with me, still sleeping at the hospital, and my dad put up with it. Not very graciously, but he did. I got faster at walking every day, and my balance got better as well. After four days France was even confident enough as to let go of my elbow, he still stayed pretty close though, in case I did fall. I didn't though. I nearly did a few times, but I always got my balance back very quickly. I was healing quickly too, luckily I hadn't had any broken bones, and they had fixed my internal and external bleeding. So I just needed to get my strength back and let my bruises heal up. My appetite was going back to normal as well. When I'd first woken up I hadn't wanted to eat for a few days, but I wanted to now. Knowing that I didn't really like hospital food, my sisters would bring me stuff. Just low key things, like fruit or biscuits. Just stuff like that. It wasn't really that big a deal, but I was very grateful to them for it. Hospital food really was disgusting, so the stuff they brought me was like the best tasting stuff ever. My uncles came to see me every few days, just to check on me. I was indifferent when England came to see me, we had never really gotten on, but the tension was unbelievable now that France was always with me, but when Canada came to see me I perked up considerably. He was by far my favorite uncle, and what made it even better was that he didn't mind France being there at all. The first time he came France couldn't see him, but he could now. He was making a real effort to remember who Canada was, just because when he came to see me it made me smile. It actually amazed me that me and Canada still got on well, seeing as I had changed so much, but I was happy that we did. Prussia and Spain came to see me once as well, they kept asking when I would be discharged, but I think that that was only because one member of their 'bad touch trio' was constantly there with me. They couldn't be a trio without him and he had made it very clear that he wasn't leaving without me. Those two came while my sisters were there, and while Prussia pestered us, Spain was trying to start a conversation with Angelica, and failing badly as he was acting so shy and awkward. It was pretty cute. I got better and better as the days past, and after two more weeks there was talk of them letting me go home. No one was certain that it would be allowed yet, but everyone was hopeful. Getting to go home would be brilliant. I wouldn't have to put up with stupid hospital food, I would get to wear my own clothes again, although I'd been told that when I was discharged I would have to stay out of heels for a while, and me and France would be able to go on a date or something. It was obvious that we liked each other, but in a hospital we couldn't really talk about it, someone would overhear and we didn't want that. We wanted to be able to talk it over, decide what we were going to do, and then let everyone know. Simple as. But we needed to get out of the hospital first. We were all hoping that they would let me go home at the end of the week, and it certainly seemed as though they would. I was so looking forward to going home and getting to sleep in my own bed again, and I think France was as well. But his bed, not mine. No way was I going there. But no doubt he would be checking on me every day, whether it was by dropping by or just phoning, he would want to keep checking, just so that he knew I was okay. That could get annoying after a while, but it hadn't even started yet, so I kept those thoughts at the back of my mind. At the end of the week my dad came in with a bag. It had my clothes in it, I looked at him and he smiled. "They've said you can come home." He said. I hugged him, smiling too, and shooed both him and France out of the room so that I could change. I was all ready to go in ten minutes, excitement building up inside of me as we got in the lift. I couldn't believe that I was actually going home. The lift stopped and we got out. We walked towards the big automatic doors and, holding France's hand, I stepped out into what was my first taste of the outside world in six weeks. Man, it felt good to be out of hospital, and now I got to go home.


	14. That was surprising

I'd been home for a week now and I was pretty much back to normal. Running to the phone when it rang, or jumping up onto the sofa. My dad was always worried that I was going to hurt myself, but I knew my limit better than he did. That's why I was still steering clear of the heels. France had been coming to see me every single day, much to my father's dismay. We wouldn't let him open the door in case he decided not to let France in. Although there was nothing we could do to stop him trying to force him back out as quickly as possible, not that it really mattered. France wasn't going anywhere unless he absolutely had to, or I said so. Today when he came round he was holding a single rose. A white rose. He handed it to me, looking slightly nervous, but I didn't know why. "Thank you, Francis." I said, smelling it. He took it back and tucked it behind my ear. I let out a small giggle and he smiled at me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my dad glaring at him from the hall, but I ignored him. "Look, umm, Vanessa, I was just wondering, if, uhh, you would maybe like to-" He coughed. "-if you would like to go on a date with me. Perhaps." He stuttered. So that was why he'd looked nervous, I was about to answer when my dad ran in, completely hysterical. "OF COURSE SHE DOESN'T! WHY WOULD SHE GO ON A DATE WITH YOU, YOU STINKING PERVERT!" He would have continued, but I got up and slapped him. If I hadn't then he would probably have gotten violent. France was already squashing himself against the back of the sofa as it was. "You can't say what I'm going to choose dad." I paused, folding my arms. "You're not me, so you can't decide for me." He looked at me blankly for a moment, then retaliated. "I'm your father, so I can decide for you when it comes to boys. You're too young to date." I gritted my teeth. "I'm twenty. I'm an adult, so I can choose for myself." Maybe I could just outwit him, that could work. "Yes, you're twenty, but he's still too old for you." He pointed at France, nearly punching him in the face. France tried to move back further but somehow manged to end up sat on the back of the sofa. "He's much older than me, and I'm your father. So he's way too old for you." He thought he was being clever now. But he wasn't. "Dad, personifications don't age. You only did because you were little, but you don't anymore. So he really isn't that much older than me, technically." We were probably insulting France, but I could apologize to him later, it would be fine. Neither of us could think of anything else to say, so I pushed him out of the room. It was hard, that man's heavier than he looks. When he was in the hall I closed the door and turned the lock so he couldn't get back in, there was a door leading into the garden, so we could get out if we needed to, he just couldn't get in anymore. Yay. I turned back to France, sitting back down on the sofa. He was still on the back of it, but looking less terrified now. "Francis, I would love to go on a date with you." I said softly, smiling at him. He started to smile back when we were both pulled out of the moment by a massive 'thud' at the door, accompanied by my father yelling "NO". We both jumped, and France fell off of the sofa. I catapulted myself over it and landed lightly next to him. "Are you okay?" I asked, and he just started laughing. "Magnificent." He laughed, pulled me down next to him, wrapping me in a big hug. I smiled as he kissed the top of my head. There was another 'thud' on the door, and I swear, I had never known that it was possible to get up that quickly. In about half a second I was stood up, France followed about two seconds later. "I think you should probably go, otherwise he could end up killing himself, or you, that's always a possibility." I said to France. He grinned at me, heading towards the back door, the one that led out into the garden. "See you Friday. I'll pick you up at seven." He said, opening the door. So he'd scheduled our date already, of course he had, it was him. "Now when you get out there you just want to run for your life, if my dad sees you then you're gonna get chased. " He laughed, ran across the garden and turned to wink at me before jumping over the fence. I went to the other door and unlocked it. My dad burst through. "Where is he? I'll kill him!" He said, looking frantically for France. "He's gone. He left just now." I said calmly, grabbing my dad's arm and pinning him to the sofa. He glared at the rose in my hair, the only trace that France had been here. He went to grab it, but I slapped his hand away, raising my eyebrows at him in a 'not a chance' sort of way. I threw the T.V remote at him before heading upstairs to my room. I took the rose out of my hair. I suddenly found myself going all day dreamy. I fell back on my bed, staring at the ceiling, but not really seeing it. Then a thought popped into my head. 'Why a white rose?' I asked myself in my head. I didn't know. I knew that red roses symbolized love or passion, but I wasn't sure what white roses symbolized. I'd have to find that out sometime. I got up to look in my wardrobe. I hadn't been wearing my Vegas outfit for a while, mainly because the only shoes that went with it were the heels, and I didn't really want to wear that on a date anyway. Especially not a first date. He'd seemed to like my style before I became a personification, so I'd stick to something that was like what I used to wear. I still liked it, so I wouldn't just be dressing that way for him. After a while I'd picked what I was going to wear and laid back down, my stomach full of butterflies, I was actually going on a date with Francis Bonnefoy! I'd only loved him for like three years now. All I had to do now was wait until Friday, and it was Wednesday today. Just the rest of today, tomorrow and up until seven o clock on Friday. That wasn't really that long. But as I lay there, I realized that every minute was dragging on forever. This was going to take longer than I'd thought.


	15. The first date

I breathed deeply, opening my eyes and seeing the light streaming through the gap between the curtains. Then I remembered what day it was and sat up, throwing the bed sheets off of me. Friday. The day of my date with France. I looked at the clock, it was only 6:30. I had twelve and a half hours to get ready. Great. What made it even better was that my dad was going away to see Germany. He'd tried everything to get out of it, just so that he could sabotage my date, but Germany wasn't going to let him get out of going, they'd scheduled it months ago. So unlucky for him, but very lucky for me. I got out of bed and went to get breakfast. I wasn't really hungry, in fact I was so nervous about tonight that I felt kind of sick, but I never skipped breakfast. Unless Uncle Arthur made it, because then it would probably kill me. But other than that, never skipped it. I made myself some toast, went back upstairs and had a shower. I took my time. By which I mean I shaved my legs and washed my hair about six times before getting out. I wanted to look perfect for this date. But I was me, so that was gonna be hard. I went back to my room and started drying my hair, wondering what to do with it. It wasn't crimped anymore, since I hadn't worn my Vegas outfit since the accident. I didn't know weather to curl it, straighten it, put it up or leave it down. I decided to straighten it, it was straight anyway, but I loved it when it was poker straight. I straightened it, then used the rose France had given me on Wednesday to pin some behind my ear. I'd managed to preserve it, practically freezing it so that it would live for twice as long as it would of otherwise. It had also gained a little turquoise like tint around the top of each petal, which I thought looked awesome, and hopefully France would as well. I dressed in the outfit that I had picked out the other day. Skinny jeans, a brown t-shirt and a lilac hoodie. Simple, but hopefully it would make a statement. I also stuck my little baseball boots on. They had tiny American flags sewn on, which was why I loved them. Plus they were really comfy. "Vanessa, Dad's leaving now!" Angelica yelled from downstairs. "Coming." I called as I opened my door. I nearly tripped when I was a few steps down and had to run the rest of the way so I didn't fall. I'd never quite understood how doing that worked, but it did, so I wasn't going to question it. "Careful, we don't want you hurting yourself again." Angelica joked, hanging upside down off of the sofa, her hair dangling to the floor. I smiled and went over to the front door to say bye to my dad. Angelica followed, getting a head rush as she stood up. I couldn't see her but I knew from her laugh what had happened. "Head rushes can kill you ya know." I called sarcastically to her, chuckling as I heard her panicked gasp. She ran out into the hall, the most terrified look on her face. "Really?" She said, her voice cracking. "No." I said, quite emotionless. I was so mean to her sometimes, but it was in a sisterly way, so it was fine. "You stupid idiot! I thought I was gonna die!" She yelled running over to me and pummeling me with her fists. She wan't very strong so I fought her off quickly enough. "Hey, cut it out you two." Said my dad, stopping our flailing hands by wrapping his arms around us. "Bye girls. See you in a few days." He hugged us tighter as we said bye. Suddenly we couldn't breathe anymore. "Dad...need...air." We both said in sync. He let go. "Sorry." He grinned, then grabbed his suitcase and headed for the car. Maria shut the door, then turned to face us. "He said that I had to be in charge of sabotaging your date later." She said, grinning hugely, "Can you imagine, me following you around later, throwing rocks at you every time you get within an inch of France." She said and all three of us exploded into laughter. We were laughing for ages and we were all in pain by the time we stopped. I hung out with them all day, we'd always had loads of fun together and we tended to get quite immature when we were all together. At around half past six I started to get quite agitated, knowing that it wasn't long before France would be here to pick me up. I still had no idea where we were going and I hadn't seen him at all yesterday, although I knew that the reason he didn't come round yesterday was because of the date today. He'd sent me a text though. It was one line from my favorite song, followed by an emoticon of a white rose. He seemed to like white roses. I was very glad that I'd put mine in my hair. My sisters definitely noticed how jumpy I was getting, and decided to make it worse. How nice of them. Maria sat next to me on the sofa and Angelica sat on the floor. I looked at them, confused by the looks on their faces. They looked sort of, smug. They then started listing all of the stupid things that I could end up doing that would wreck the date, while I panicked. Not hugely, I'm a lady, when I'm not Vegas. Then I'm a flirt. But today I was a lady. I thought that they would be able to go on forever, but the doorbell rang. I sprung up off of the sofa, but Maria was already at the door. "Hello." She said sweetly, I'd started walking to the hall, but froze as I heard his voice. "I'm here to pick up your sister, if you don't mind." I heard Maria chuckle, probably knowing my reaction already. "Of course. Vanessa." She called, I took a step forward and then hesitated. So Angelica walked past me, grabbed my arm and hauled me through the door. I punched her arm, but she ignored me. I gave France an awkward smile, trying to wrench my arm from Angelica's grasp, I eventually managed, but stumbled backwards into the wall. I wasn't even out of the front door yet and I'd already made a fool of myself, I prayed that this wasn't going to set the tone of the evening. Although with my luck, it was going to. "If you would be so kind as to step aside slightly." Maria said to France, he looked at me, clearly confused, but I didn't know what was going on either, so I just shrugged with a 'may as well' look on my face. He did, and I was literally thrown out of the door. I managed to land on my feet though. The door slammed behind me and me and France started to walk down the steps. We were at the bottom when the door opened again. I spun round, France just looked over his shoulder. "Forgot to say, hope you have your first kiss today!" The twins yelled, and then slammed the door again. France looked at me, and I have never blushed that hard before that moment.


	16. Perfection in the form of a kiss

"Sorry about them." I mumbled as we turned out of my street, I was still blushing, but not quite as intensely as before. "You don't have to apologize for them, it's fine, no big deal." France said, putting one arm around my shoulders and pulling me closer to him. I rolled my eyes at him and shook his arm off of me. But then I took hold of his hand. He seemed happy enough with that compromise. "Francis, where are we going?" I asked, looking at him. He just tapped his nose. "Ah, so you're not going to tell me, well I suppose that's fine. But next time I'm the one that gets to keep the location secret from you, okay." I smiled. "You want there to be a next time?" He sounded quite shocked at that prospect. I tried not to sound offended in my response. "Of course I do Francis." I said, cheerful at all times, couldn't sound offended. "Oh. Well then of course you can keep the location secret from me." He was smiling now, I loved his smile. It was kind of weird. It seemed childish, but at the same time it didn't, and sometimes it looked sort of sad. But luckily for me it was very happy right now. We turned a few more corners and I finally became conscious of where we were going. We were going to the theme park at the edge of town. I'd been there loads with my dad and sisters when I was little and we'd always had so much fun. I loved most of the rides, but being scared of heights meant that I couldn't go on the biggest roller coasters. My favorite was one where you sat in a little car, it only fit two people in, and whoever was in the drivers seat had to keep their foot on the accelerator and steer. If they didn't steer it would still move, but you'd be jolted around all over the place. It was a really long track as well, it took about half an hour to get back to the start. "Okay, here we are." France said, we were at the gate to the amusement park. I smiled a little as he got two wristbands out of his pocket. He put one on himself, then, when I put my hand out to take the other one, put it on me. "Come on." He said, taking my hand and leading me through the gates. "Where do you want to go first?" He asked me. I pondered for a while. "I don't care, but I do have a limit when it comes to the bigger rides." He chuckled, "I do too. Oh, I know where to go first." He said, leading me to one of my favorite rides. It was where you sat on a fake horse, one or two people, and it went around in this great big oval, getting faster all the while. He let me choose our horse, I selected a nice brown one with a black mane. I was about to climb up when he picked me up and placed my on it. Side saddle. I swung my leg over it, no way was I going side saddle. You were allowed to if there was another person on there with you, but not if you were on your own. I wasn't going to either way. Then he swung himself up after me, of course, as the lady, I was in the back seat and he, as the gentleman, was in the front seat. There were two sets of handles on the horses neck and I reached forward to get hold of my set. But he got hold of my hands and moved them so that I was holding onto his waist instead. I rolled my eyes, but didn't protest. As the ride started, my arms were around his waist and my head was resting on his shoulder. When it came to an end he hopped down off of the horse while I swung my leg back over, and then he lifted me down. "You do know that I'm perfectly capable of getting on and off of these things." I said, patting the horse. "Yes, but I thought it would be more romantic if I lifted you." He took my hand again and started leading me to another ride. "Well, you're supposed to be the most romantic country, so I suppose you know what you're doing." I said, trying to work out where we were going now. He smiled at me. We stopped at my favorite, the little car one that was really long. "I believe this is your favorite." He said as we joined the queue. "Yes, it is. How did you know that?" I was quite touched by the fact he'd bothered to find that out. "I had a little meeting with your sisters the other day." He said. I made a noise of realization. It was sort of like a 'mmmmmmm' mixed with 'ahhhhh' so it came out as something like 'ahhmmmm'. It made France laugh, and then I started laughing too. It wasn't long before it was our turn to get into a car, France got in first so that he could drive, and so that he could help me in. I didn't really want to be lifted into this one, so he had to settle for holding my hand to help keep me balanced. We set off. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other was holding my hand. We couldn't see any other cars so it was like we were the only people there, as opposed to all the other rides, where you can see everyone else, apart from people who are behind you. Eventually it got quite awkward in our little car. We weren't speaking, and France seemed rather uncomfortable. Then he broke the silence. "Vanessa." He said. I turned to face him. "Hmm." Was how I responded. Then he leaned forward, pressing his lips against mine. I was shocked at fist, but then I started to kiss him back, wrapping my arms around his neck. Then all of a sudden the car jolted and we were thrown away from each other. He grabbed the steering wheel. He'd let go of it and we'd turned a corner. He looked at me and we both burst out laughing. I now had a new reason for this to be my favorite ride. I'd had my first ever kiss on this ride, and it was perfect.


	17. A burst of fangirling

When I got home from that date I was full of adrenaline. Partially from roller coasters, but mostly from the kiss. Of course, as soon as I was through the door the twins started to question me relentlessly, but every time I started to answer I would get through half a sentence, and then burst out into a fangirl scream. After a while they realized that they weren't going to get any information out of me tonight, so they let me go to bed. It was quite late, but I couldn't get to sleep for hours. At about twenty past twelve I finally gave in and turned my laptop on. I played games for ages. Puzzle games, dress up games, escape games, all sorts really. I'd just started a new game of solitaire when I saw an advert for a gambling site. Now I'd never been on one of those, but it looked quite tempting right about now. I could see a glimmer of sparkle out of the corner of my eye. My Vegas outfit. I was Vegas, deep down, I always would be, and Vegas was known for gambling, so it couldn't hurt, could it? I was about to click on it when a chat box popped up. It was my dad. 'What are you doing up so late? Or should I say early?' Was all it said. 'I couldn't sleep.' I wasn't lying, it was true. I was very thankful for him messaging me just at that moment, Vegas me might have wanted to click that, but Vanessa me didn't. 'Well then you're going to be very tired in the morning/later.' Came the reply. 'I know, but I suppose it can't be helped.' I typed quickly, even for me. 'Yes it can. You can help it by turning your laptop off and going to sleep.' He was typing quickly as well, it seemed. 'But I can't sleep, I'd just be bored.' I was trying to type quickly now, just so I could make him look slow. It seemed he was doing the same thing. 'Then don't blame me when you feel like a zombie later on. I don't really want to ask this, but, how was your date?' I almost panicked, 'keep it simple, no big details' I told myself before I typed in a reply. 'It was good, we went to the amusement park.' Part of me thought that he might stop at that, but the majority knew that he wasn't going to. 'So, anything exciting happen?' He wanted to know if France had tried anything. I decided not to lie, but not to give away the fact that we'd kissed, I didn't really want him to be mad at me when he got back home. 'Well, we went on that ride that I love, you know, the little car one that's really long.' Not lying, but not giving the game away. 'Don't tell me stuff like that, you know what I want to know. Did he try to do anything to you?' I chewed my lip as I read it. I started typing, but then deleted it again, knowing that he would be worrying. I'd been replying really fast, and now I was taking ages, I went to type again, and stopped myself again. Another message from dad came through. 'Vanessa, what did he do to you!?' I had to write something now, or he'd think the worst, which he probably already was, but if I didn't reply now then in his mind that would just confirm it. 'He just kissed me. That was all.' I typed, I couldn't have put anything else. 'The idiot, kissing you when you didn't want to be kissed, it makes me sick. I'll kill him when I see him!" I grew quite alarmed reading that, I had to tell him not to kill France. 'No, I kinda, sorta, kissed him back.' I typed. He read the message and then the little chat box vanished. I closed my laptop, pushed it away from me, fell back onto my pillow and started to cry. I'd hurt him, I knew that, and he would want to kill me when he got home. I didn't even dare to think about what he might do to France. There had to be some way of fixing this. I didn't know what it was, but I managed to cry myself to sleep, so at least I wouldn't be a zombie for this.


	18. Daddy came home

I was right about my dad totally flipping out when he got home. I'd come up with loads of stuff I could say that would make it better, but they all just made it worse. So now I'm grounded, confined to my room and I've been forbidden to see France. How mean is that? Oh, and my father now hates me. For life. That's much worse than the rest of it. He also won't let my sisters come and see me. They're not allowed in my room, and if I run into them on the landing they're not allowed to talk to me. I've been shut off from all other human beings because of one little kiss. On a date. If you can't get away with kissing someone on a date then when can you get away with it? Never apparently, especially if you're me, or have my father as, well, your father. "This sucks." I moaned as I lay on my bed, watching the rain bouncing off of the road. My phone vibrated, making me jump. I picked it up to see who was texting me. France. I put the phone back down. If I couldn't talk to him then I wasn't going to let him talk to me either. I was doing a very good job of ignoring it, until curiosity got the better of me. After about thirty seconds of ignoring him I couldn't do it any longer. I grabbed the phone and opened the text. 'What's wrong?' It said, followed by a picture of a rose. He always put the picture of the rose at the end of his texts to me. It was like a trademark. A trademark that made my heart skip a beat every time I saw it. It let me know he cared, he only ever left it out of a text if he was talking about someone else, or swearing, which he hardly ever did while talking to me. I started a text back, but then remembered I wasn't supposed to be talking to him. But then again, texting didn't really count as talking. Phoning him would have been talking to him, but texting was just me sending a load of pixels to his phone and his phone turning them into letters and words and him reading them. Not talking, not meeting up with, just contacting, and it was only to tell him that he needed to stop texting me, at least for a while, until my dad calmed down. 'My dad knows we kissed.' I texted back, along with a little sad face. 'How did he react?' I read as my phone lit up. 'Badly.' Was all I put. 'How badly?' I pondered what to put. 'Well, I'm breaking the rules by talking to you. In fact I would probably be breaking the rules if I spoke to myself.' That seemed to cover it. 'Ah. So very badly then.' Came the reply. 'Yep.' I put. 'So I'm not allowed to come see you?' He questioned. 'You're probably not allowed to think about me without my dad wishing he had a voodoo doll of you to torture.' I put it plainly. 'I can't live like that. I'm coming over.' I panicked. 'What? When?' I was very impatient waiting for his text now. It came quickly, and I nearly had a heart attack when my phone started to vibrate. 'I'm coming over. Now.'


	19. The face off

It was an understatement to say I was hyperventilating right now. I was so glad I was alone, it meant that no one could see me like this. I honestly had no idea what was going to happen when France got here, but it wasn't going to be good whatever it was. My dad was going to flip. Big time. I strained my ears to hear the knock on the door, and when it came I wished I hadn't heard it. I suddenly didn't want to be alone anymore. I heard the door open, and France speaking. He sounded calm, but I could tell that he that was just a facade. For the most part anyway. He was trying to be calm on the surface so that my dad would be, but no way would that work. It did. At the start anyway. My dad answered him calmly, but it started to kick off a little when France protested. Voices were raised. The twins ran out of their rooms onto the landing. I slowly pulled my door open. "Guys." I murmured, nearly in tears, confrontations like this terrified me, though I wasn't sure why. They came into my room, and the three of us curled up on my bed, like we used to do when we were little. None of us spoke for a while, we just listened to what was happening downstairs, my sisters protecting me and me silently crying. After a while, Angelica broke the silence. "I could get Spain here, if that would make you feel safer. He wouldn't have to go past them, he could use the roof hatch. You don't have to agree, I just thought maybe having a guy up here to protect us might make you feel better about this." I nodded quickly, wiping my eyes. "Right then." She said, getting up. She peered over the banister to make sure she wouldn't be seen and then made a mad dash for her room the moment she deemed it safe. I could just hear that she was talking, but I couldn't really make out what she was saying, just the odd word. After she put the phone down she stayed in her room, obviously waiting for Spain to get there. The shouting quietened for a few seconds and I started to relax a bit. But then it started again. "You can't tell me how to raise my daughter!" I'd never heard my father sound so angry before, it was really quite scary. "I'm not, I'm telling you that she has a mind of her own, so let her use it!" France retaliated. The volume went up a notch. "Well if she let you kiss her then she doesn't know how to use it does she!" I cringed and hid my face in a pillow, while Maria went into super-protective-big-sister-mode. She was comforting me, whispering to me and stroking my shoulder, (odd I know, but it was working.), and her eyes never left the landing, flicking from Angelica's door to the top of the stairs. She would stare at Angelica's door for some time before flicking to the stairs. She knew that if either France or my father came upstairs before Spain got here then Angelica would be terrified. I knew that too, but at this point it didn't really matter to me. I just didn't want my dad to do anything to France. They could scream at each other all they liked and I would stay up here, but if he got violent towards France I would have to go down there. Just then we heard a small thud, Spain had arrived. He and Angelica ran to my room. Well, Angelica ran, he kind of speed-jogged. They closed the door behind them and Angelica climbed back onto the bed while Spain perched on my desk chair. I'd never been so glad to see him, and he really got on my nerves. I started to relax a little and so did everyone else. But after a few minutes we all stopped breathing. Someone was running up the stairs.


	20. That wasn't fun

I froze, not even drawing breath. The door flew open and France was stood there. He looked terrible, is eyes wide, his hair all messed up. His lip was split and bleeding, it looked slightly puffy as well. I got up and went over to him. "He hurt you." I whispered. "Did you... fight back?" My volume still didn't increase as I dabbed at his lip with a tissue. He shook his head. "I didn't want to hurt you, so I didn't touch him." His eyes seemed so scared, I guess mine must have too. He pushed me further into the room as my father smashed something downstairs. He closed the door and turned back to face me again. It was now that he noticed Spain sitting there. His eyes changed from scared to confused. "What are you doing here?" He asked. "I asked him to come." Angelica said, going over to him and sitting on his lap. She hid her head in his shoulder and I clung to France as we heard another smash from downstairs. "He's gonna end up doing something really stupid, isn't he?" Maria said, putting back the pillow she'd grabbed before. "I really hope not." Angelica said. "Maybe we should go down there, just me and you. If Vanessa or France go then he'll just get worse, and he doesn't even know that Spain's here, so he can't go down." Maria said to Angelica. She replied with a 'hmm' and they hesitantly started the journey down the stairs. France sat on the end of my bed, I went to sit next to him but he pulled me onto his lap instead. I lent my head against him and he put his arms around me. I tried to work out what was going on as far as the twins were concerned. There was the sound of my father shouting at them, and then one of them speaking very fast, trying desperately to calm him down. There was a thud and I yelped quietly, France tightened his grip on me. We heard a small sobbing sound, and footsteps in the hallway. The front door opened and slammed shut again. Then a car starting and driving away. As soon as it fell silent Spain rushed downstairs. Me and France followed, refusing to let go of each other's hands. When we got down there we saw Angelica crumpled up on the floor with a big angry red mark on the side of her face. Spain was knelt by her side and Maria was in the kitchen wetting a tea towel. There were bits of glass all over the floor from where my father had smashed glasses, and from the flowers scattered around I was guessing a vase as well. "Go and get your stuff, we're not staying here anymore." Maria said, there was no emotion in her voice, but her face was full of anger. Angelica was hurt, that was all she could take. I turned and headed back upstairs, pulling France along behind me. When we got back to my room I got my suitcase down from where it was perched on top of my wardrobe. I then began folding clothes and placing them in the most efficient way possible. After I'd packed I realized how scared about leaving I actually was. We had no idea where my dad had gone so what if we ran into him. I decided that I would be much more comfortable without my guilty conscious so made France stand outside while I changed into my Vegas outfit. The heels were a tad hard to stand up in as I'd been wearing nothing but flat shoes for a while, but having the rebellious side of me back really made this easier. I yanked the door open, seizing France's hand once again, dragging my suitcase with my other hand and marched down the stairs. My sisters and Spain looked at my a bit weirdly when they saw how I was dressed, but the twins understood why I'd done it and soon started ignoring it. They're bags were already down there and we all went out and loaded our bags into the boot of Spain's car, which was only a few streets away. Then we all climbed in, Spain driving, Angelica in the passenger seat and Me Maria and France in the back. 'So this is it.' I thought as I looked back at the house. 'We're leaving home, without so much as a goodbye.' I turned back round as the house left my sight. France put his arm around my shoulders and I lent against his shoulder. All of the memories I'd had in that house ran through my mind, and all the possible things that could happen now followed shortly after. I'm not going to go through all of them, but none of them were good.


	21. Sleeping arrangements

So it was decided, the twins were going to stay with Spain so that he could keep an eye on Angelica, and I was going to stay with France. Ideally we would all have liked to stay together, but seeing as that wasn't an option we were all quite content with the arrangements made. We went to Spain's house and got the twins bags out of the boot, then I hugged my sisters goodbye for now and got back in the car as they went inside. Spain went in with them to show them where to put their stuff, and then he came back out and got in the car too. He drove us to France's house and unlocked the boot. It was obvious that he just wanted to get back to Angelica. I'd never thought he'd be that protective, but then again, I hadn't thought that my father would ever hit one of us. I collected my suitcase and Spain drove away as soon as I closed the boot. France took my case from me and lead me indoors. His house looked a lot more modest than I expected it to, but it had a lovely homely feel to it. When we were indoors I was glad that he wasn't one of those people who like everything to be immaculate, this house looked so nice with a bit of clutter. It made it look lived in, as opposed to just occupied. France led me upstairs and told me that I could have his room while I was there. He put my suitcase on the bed and turned to leave. "It's getting pretty late, and you'll need your strength up if he doesn't calm down." He didn't need to explain who he was talking about. He started walking towards the door. Opening it, he turned to look at me, "Goodnight Vanessa." He said, smiling at me, I gave a meek little smile back "Night Francis." And he was gone. I opened my suitcase, fishing around for my onesie. I found it and changed quickly, then I moved my case onto the floor and climbed into the bed. I could hear France moving around and got up and opened the door, then I got back into bed. He appeared on the stairs with a bunch of sheets, 'He must be sleeping on the sofa.' I thought as he carried them downstairs. He saw me watching him and gave me a little wave, I smiled at him, glad that he was here. But then he was downstairs and I was alone again. After a while I couldn't even hear him anymore, which meant that he was probably asleep, or perhaps just laying there. I got out of bed and walked along the landing, trying to avoid any creaky patches. I tiptoed down the stairs and into the living room, poking my head round the door. He didn't move, but he must have heard me. "Vanessa." He said quietly. "Yes." I was quieter, which isn't really something to be proud of. "Why did you just sneak downstairs?" So he had heard me, and he'd heard that I was trying not to be heard. I stuck to the truth, ish. "I don't really want to be alone tonight." I hung my head, it had sounded stupid when I said it to myself, but saying it to him just made me sound like an idiot. "Understandable." He said, sitting up slightly. He patted the space beside him and I went and laid down. I was only half on the sofa but that didn't even matter. France had his arms around me, his chin resting on the top of my head and I curled up against him, truly happy to be there. I closed my eyes and within minutes I was asleep. In my dream I didn't leave this house. I lived there for a while and then me and France got married. Then there was a time skip thingy and suddenly we had children, three of them and I was pregnant with a fourth. I was so happy, but part of me knew that none of it was real, that it was only a dream, and I forced myself to wake up. It was morning and France was still asleep, neither of us had moved at all and I could feel how stiff my joints were, but I was comfortable, so I let myself stay there until France started to stir. "Morning." He said, mid way through a yawn. "Morning." I got up and stretched. Then headed to the bathroom. I went and got my Vegas clothes from my case, I would need them if there was a confrontation at all today. I looked at my stomach as I changed, feeling all maternal after the dream, but having no child to mother, I didn't like that feeling. Not at all. "Maybe someday." I sighed, feeling more confident as soon as I was dressed. I went back downstairs and found France doing his hair. He didn't see or hear me, so I sat down to watch. I didn't know why, I guess I was just being nosy, but it gave me something to do. When he was done he turned around and saw me sitting there. He jumped and fell over. I know I should have helped him up but I couldn't stop laughing. After a couple of minute France started to laugh as well and we were both acting like complete and utter morons. But we were having fun.


	22. Not on the sofa again

After we finally finished laughing we went round to Spain's, the red mark on Angelica's face had changed to a big bruise. I gave her a massive hug. I would have hugged Maria as well, but it was clear as soon as we walked in that she wasn't in a huggy mood. She was still fuming that anyone had dared hurt Angelica. We stayed there for hours, I was getting more agitated and restless every minute, but I forced myself to sit still. It was not an easy task, and I was ashamed at how glad I was to leave. It meant that we were walking back to France's and walking meant movement. That made it quite easy to be happy about leaving. I hugged Angelica again, said bye to Maria and Spain and me and France left. After we'd turned a few corners I started skipping and hopping about. Playing hopscotch on the pavement and kicking pebbles about. "I'm guessing you were a tad restless in there then." France said, laughing as I kicked a stone. "Just a bit, yeah." I joked. I was still bouncing around but he put his arm around my shoulders, holding me down. "What do you want to do then, because there's no way you're going to sit still at all." He asked, smiling at me. I had no idea what I wanted to do. It wasn't exactly dark, but it wasn't that far off it really, so they options were quite limited. We were nearly knocked over by a group of guys as we turned the corner. They were all running, but some were lagging behind. "Come on!" Yelled the one in front. "Hurry up or we'll never get to the club!" The last few sped up a little, a couple winking at me as they ran past, not surprising really considering I was Vegas tonight. I wasn't really bothered by it, but France was, he pulled me ever so slightly closer to him, as if protecting me from them. When they'd gone he relaxed his grip on me again. "So where do you want to go?" I didn't say anything, I just looked up at him, grinning. "No." He said firmly, I gave him puppy eyes. "No." He raised his eyebrows, I stuck the pouty face in with the eyes, I could see him wavering. "Oh fine." he gave in. "Yes." I cried, punching the air. He rolled his eyes at me and I laughed. We had to queue for ages but eventually we got into the club. I dragged him straight to the dance floor. I wasn't exactly sure how he wanted to dance, so I just kind of swayed about a bit. But then a really cool song came on and my instincts took over. I had no idea what I was doing, I just knew that I was moving quickly and he was keeping perfect time. I didn't know what moves I was making, but he obviously did, so it didn't matter that I didn't. Eventually he made me leave and we went back to his house. "Do you want to be alone tonight?" He asked, locking the front door. "Nope." I said, starting to climb the stairs. "So we're sharing again then?" He said. "Yes, but not on the sofa." I said, grabbing his hand and running up the stairs. There was a possibility that my dad would forgive me for the kiss, but no way would he ever forgive me if he found out what I did with France that night. When I woke up the next morning even I didn't know why I'd done that. As soon as I remembered I got out of bed, got dressed and went downstairs. France wasn't awake, but I didn't care. I went out into the back garden for some fresh air, realizing how stupid I'd been. My dad had been so mad that I'd even kissed France, now I'd gone and done that. It had been my idea as well, which would just make it worse. I may as well go and get a shovel, because I would need a grave, and a headstone. It would say, 'Vanessa Jones, betrayed her father.' Oh dear, I am such an idiot. Why? Why would I do that? Even as Vegas, what reason could I possibly have? It was practically suicide. It wasn't all my fault though, France didn't exactly say no, and he knows that I can't control my actions as Vegas, so some of the blame's on him. We would need two headstones. Only one shovel though. My sister's would kill me as well, Angelica had gotten hurt because of me doing something stupid and I'd just gone and made it about seven billion times worse. What was wrong with me? It had to be something major. I honestly wanted to jump off of cliff, maybe my dad really would kill me, then I wouldn't have to do it myself from guilt, and I felt so guilty right now.


	23. What can I say?

We have all come to the conclusion that I can not be trusted as Vegas until this whole thing is over. I can't wear the outfit and all rules must be followed. Yes, my sisters gave me rules. They gave France rules as well and we've both been thoroughly informed about what will happen to us should any of these rules be broken. We're only allowed to hold hands. That's it. No real intimacy allowed. Not that I blame them for giving us that rule, but it means that he can't even put his arm around my shoulders anymore. At least, not until we get it into my dad's head that we're together. We got a phone call today, from Uncle Arthur, saying that dad was with him and that he was really worried about us, he'd gone home and none of us were there. We told him we were safe, but we weren't going home yet and that we were glad dad was with him. He'd raised him and so knew how to calm him down. We also asked him to try and get dad to be a bit more accepting of my and France's relationship, he said he would try, but he wasn't making any promises. So all we can do is hope. We're not going to tell dad about the development in the relationship as we don't really want to die, but I'm sure that at some point he'll have to know. In the meanwhile, I'm now staying at Spain's, as the rules state that me and France can not be together with one of the twins to supervise us. I feel like a child. A child with extremely strict parents. It's not fun, but I'm going along with it anyway, I have to after all, it was my mistake, (mostly), and so I need to be punished for it. It must be said, Spain's sofa if not comfortable at all. I didn't get any sleep. None. It didn't help that I was freezing. That house gets so drafty at night. I was very cold and extremely tired by the time anyone else got up. I could barely think straight all morning. At around midday there was a knock on the door, it was France, my thoughts cleared up a little with him there, but I was still too tired to be at my usual capacity. We were trying to get as close to each other as we could without actually touching, so we probably looked like idiots, but we didn't care. I needed him near me, there was no explanation as to why, I just did, and I think he needed me around him as well. It was just a shame that we couldn't actually be around each other without it becoming very awkward very quickly. But what can I say, rules are rules after all, no matter how annoying they are. We spent an entire afternoon doing nothing. We were all bored and fidgeting, and me and France were sick of being in the same room as Angelica and Spain. They were curled up on the sofa together, all sweet and lovey-dovey. While we'd put our selves at opposite ends of the room, not even allowing ourselves to look at each other. Or at least I didn't allow myself to look at him, I wouldn't know if he was looking at me or not because I wasn't looking at him. At about eight pm the doorbell rang. We let Spain get it, it was his house after all, and listened to see if we could work out who it was. "Hey dude." I froze, my eyes going wide as I heard my fathers voice fill the hall. He sounded like he'd been crying, and there was no anger left in his voice. We all seemed to realize that the rules had been nullified and France was suddenly by my side, I hadn't even seen him move, but he was there. "Is Vanessa here?" He'd definitely been crying, and he hadn't had much sleep, I could tell from how his voice sounded. It was all hoarse and croaky, and he kept clearing his throat every few seconds. "She's here, but I'm not sure she's going to want to see you." Spain said. "Please, I just need to talk to her." My dad babbled, his voice sounding desperate now. "Let him in." I said, I didn't need to raise my voice at all, everything in the house had fallen silent apart from those two at the door. He practically ran into the living room, stopping dead when he saw Angelica. "I hurt you. I'm so sorry, my angel." He murmured, hugging her, a tear running down his face. Angelica started crying as well. "I'll never hurt you again Angie, I promise." He said, kissing her forehead. She couldn't deal with it and ran out of the room, shoving him out of the way. Maria sprinted after her as she hurried up the stairs. We heard a door slam and Maria's footsteps on the landing, quickly followed by Spain tackling the stairs about four at a time. So now it was just me, France and my father, and the look on his face nearly drove me to tears.


	24. No way

He looked so heartbroken, not surprising really, considering all three of his daughters left without him knowing, and one had just run away from him. But it was me he needed to talk to, and, excepting France, I was the only one left down here. The tension was unbelievable, and it didn't get any better when my father broke the silence. "Vanessa, there's something I need to talk you about." He paused glancing at France, "In private." France started to get up. "He can stay." I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him back down. My dad took a deep breath, trying to keep his cool, "Fine." He said, sitting down. "I've had a long talk with your uncle, and he came up with the idea that maybe I should just talk to you and find out exactly how you feel about France, and now he's here then I suppose I can also find out how he feels about you, can't I?" I suddenly felt a small pang of regret of making France stay there, I wasn't sure how I felt, I just felt like when he wasn't near me, in a way, I wasn't me. Like I was just a shell, he was the rest of me, my mind, my soul, my heart. Even just thinking about him not being here made my heart ache. I sat there thinking all of this, and realized what it meant. I loved him. No doubt about it, this was love, nothing more, nothing less, just, love. "So Vanessa, how _do_ you feel about France?" My dad asked, sounding very awkward. I looked at France, meeting his gaze, and just staring into his eyes, I saw everything I was feeling reflected there and suddenly confessing it was easy. "I love him. There's nothing else to it." I said, smiling slightly. "And France, what about you?" He said it in an almost accusing way. "She's everything to me. Nothing else has mattered since the first time I spoke to her." He said, we both knew that he meant it, even if my father didn't want to believe it. "Right, well, at least I know now. Vanessa, would you be so kind as to give me a few moments alone with France?" He asked, I got up and left the room. I went upstairs to see what was going on there. Angelica had locked herself in the bathroom and Maria and Spain were talking to her through the door, trying to get her to open it by saying a load of mushy rubbish. I rolled my eyes and gently moved them out of the way, with my elbows. I knocked twice. "Angel, open the door." They'd probably tried just saying that, but they wouldn't have said it sounding as fed up as I did. When that didn't work, I tried appealing to her nosy side. "I'll tell you what dad wanted to talk to me about." I said, after a minute the lock turned and the door opened a crack. "Only you." She whispered. I slipped through the door as it opened a little more, and she locked it behind me. I sat on the floor, I couldn't be bothered to stand up, and started to tell her, not missing out a single detail. "Wow, awkward." She said when I was pretty much done. "Yeah, and then he asked me to leave so that he could talk to Francis." I said. "About what?" She wasn't crying at all anymore, go me. "That's the thing, he didn't say what about." I shrugged. "Well lets hope that he doesn't kill him." She said, and she opened the door to Maria and Spain.

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By the way, just for the next chapter it will be switching to America's perspective, after that it will be back to Vanessa.


	25. A different perspective

Okay so this is the chapter that's from America's p.o.v. So yeah. Here we go.

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I waited until I heard Vanessa get far enough away from the door to speak again, I didn't want to risk her hearing this. I heard her go up the stairs and figured it was probably safe now. "So, what exactly are your intentions with my daughter?" I said to France, leaning forward in the chair. His eyes looked panicked for a moment, but then went back to normal as he sorted his words out in his head. "Well, I plan on dating her for a couple years, and then if it's going well and I feel that the times right, I'll most likely end up proposing." It was my turn to panic now. "Propose?" I asked, shocked, none of us had ever actually expected France to get married. "Yes, provided the relationship's going well, although it would take a complete disaster to break us apart. At least, that's how I feel about it." How was he so calm? Did he even realize that he was talking about marriage? He would have to stop flirting with every woman he saw, and be there for her whenever she needed him, it was a huge commitment that no one had ever seen him wanted to make. Then I realized what it meant. If he was willing to do all of that for her, if he wanted to, then it meant that he really did love her, and I couldn't stand between them, not now I knew that. "Right so, when you do want to propose to her, if it gets that far that is, you come and get my blessing first." I said reluctantly, I didn't want it to be true, but if it was then there was nothing that I could do about it. "I would have even if you hadn't told me to. She's very traditional with stuff like that and I know that she would want me to." He sounded happy. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the little box that I always kept with me. "And when you do, I'll give you this." I opened the box, looking at the contents, then turning it around so that he could see. "It was her mother's engagement ring, though we never actually got married. It's very special to all three girls, but Vanessa most of all. See, their mother died when they were little, the twins remember some things about her, but Vanessa doesn't, all she has is this ring to remember her by." It felt weird to be telling him this, but somehow, not wrong. It was like he was meant to here it from me, and I couldn't let her be the first to tell him. I could see in his eyes how much he loved her, and from his smile that he was picturing giving her the ring that I was holding. I wasn't going to be a couple years before they got married. Well, maybe the actual ceremony, but they would be engaged before the year was out, I was sure of it. "Think fast." I said, closing the box and throwing it to him. He caught it. "When you feel it's right, just do it. You've got my blessing already." I paused, getting up and walking over to him, trying to look threatening. "But you ever hurt her, and I will hunt you down, and you will never see the light of day again." I said. "I would never hurt her, I couldn't." He said, standing his ground. I nodded and left the room. I went upstairs to find the girls in a group hug on the bathroom floor, and Spain stood awkwardly next to them. I cleared my throat and they looked up. "Right, so I'm off now dudes." I said, they got up and I hugged them all together. "Hope to see you girls back home soon." And with that, I turned and left. Driving home, I knew that, even though he wasn't the best guy in the world, France was the best guy for my daughter, and that's all that mattered to me.

* * *

Right so next chapter's back to Vanessa's perspective. This will probably be the only one that isn't.


	26. Wait, what?

I was allowed to go back to France's house again that night. Even just one night away from him had felt like forever, how on Earth had I dealt with not seeing him before all of this? I didn't know, and to be honest, I didn't really care, I was just so glad to be back in his arms, curled up against him. I was happy. In a little world of our own, shut off from everyone else. It was perfect, but then France decided to pull me back to reality. "World meeting tomorrow." He said, while I pretended to like the real world. "Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that." I said and, in my head, I added 'along with the rest of the universe'. "You'll have to be Vegas for that, and then there's the party afterwards, but don't worry, I'll keep you in check." He mocked, I pretended to be offended until I thought of a good comeback. "Oh please, you're not going to want to keep me in check." It wasn't the best, but it worked. He just smiled and said, "You're probably right, but I'll try my hardest to be good." Then he lent down for a kiss. We slept in each other's arms again that night, and then it was meeting day. I was perfectly calm, until I realized that we would have to tell them all that we were together. We were both personifications, this was big, they had to say that they thought it was fine, and if no one did, then it wouldn't work. If we ever got married then that would be a union between France and America, because I'm the personification of an American city, so they would all have something to say about that. Once I'd worked it out I could tell that France had already, we were both trying to seem calm for the other, but inside we were panicking over it. I showered and dressed after breakfast and then we just sat and watched T.V. for a while. I wasn't getting restless today, but that was only because I was worried. As well as worrying about the meeting, I was trying to work out what my father could possibly have needed to talk to France about. I'd asked France about it a few times today, but he wasn't telling me anything. Which in my opinion was just plain rude really. At around six pm we set off for the meeting. I chose where I wanted to sit and France sat next to me. When my dad got there he sat on the other side of me and the twins sat opposite, with Spain sitting next to Angelica. We let everyone talk about whatever they needed to, chipping in when necessary. France had a bigger role to play than me, but he's a country, whereas I'm just a city, so of course he did. When he wasn't talking he would hold my hand under the table, but then when he spoke and eyes turned to him he let it go. He obviously just didn't want people seeing us holding hands before we'd had a chance to talk about it. When everyone else had talked about everything they needed to talk about France stood up, he looked at me, expecting me to stand up as well. I just stared at my knees and shook my head. I couldn't stand up in front of them. I should have been able to, I was Vegas right now after all, but I couldn't. I was ignoring her confidence, breaking through it, the real me was taking over. How was that possible? France started speaking, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. I could feel people staring at me, and my cheeks flooded scarlet. I shook my head, letting my hair fall in front of my face. It was going back straight! It was hardly even sparkly anymore. What was happening to me? I had to get out of here before I went back to being completely me, just in sparkly clothing. I heard murmurs of consent as France sat back down. Everyone else left the room to start the party, I stayed staring at my knees. "Vanessa, what's wrong? They all agreed to let us try with the relationship." He said, trying to see my face through my hair, but not noticing that it was going straight. I started pulling my false nails off. "I don't think I'm supposed to be Vegas." I mumbled. "Of course you are, you went to the World collage, they never get it wrong." He protested. "I always get more confident when I'm wearing the outfit, but I didn't this time." I looked up at him, my hair falling out of my face. "Well you were really nervous about this meeting, it can only be expected." I raised my eyebrows. "My hairs going straight again. As Vegas, it's crimped, it sticks out at all angles." I fought back, he frowned, looking at my hair. "And I can get the false nails off, which I can never do while wearing the outfit." I continued. He couldn't prove me wrong. "But you fitted the personification for ages after you were given it, why would it be changing now?" He questioned, clearly as confused as I was. "I don't know, but it is."


	27. Do I have to?

We both stood up, and I fell into his arms, unable to stand in my heels anymore. As me the highest I could handle were 3" at most, and these were at least 6" and platforms. I sighed and sat back down so that I could take them off. I would just have to go barefoot, I hated doing that, but at least the probability of me breaking my neck was much lower. Also, I couldn't go outside. That bit was annoying, as it meant that we couldn't leave. But I suppose France would just have to carry me. He could give me a piggyback, it would be fine. Although picturing France giving anyone a piggyback made it hard not to laugh. "Right, lets go and join the party, see if that helps at all." I said, getting up and leaving my heels neatly tucked under the chair. "Alright." He said, putting his arm around my shoulder. He was trying to make it look cool, but I could tell he was just making sure that I wasn't going to fall again. We joined the party, dancing around a bit. But I just couldn't lose myself in the songs, not like last time. When I wasn't Vegas I only really liked a handful of songs, most of which were anime opening themes. I didn't even watch the anime's that much, but I knew the songs. So when one came on at long last, courtesy of Japan of course, I was really in my element. I knew the dance that went with it, so while everyone else was just dancing randomly, me and Japan were both doing the proper dance. I was singing along to it as well, and France was trying to copy me, but to no avail. It was so funny watching him. After that song ended it went back to being normal music, but after about half an hour Japan got onstage and announced that the next anime song that was coming on was a dance battle song, and so did anyone know the other half of the dance. I hid in the crowd, I hated volunteering for performances. "Vanessa does!" France yelled, I glared at him. "You have to act like Vegas, we can't let them know anything's up until we know what's going on." He whispered into my ear as he shoved me forward. Japan jumped down from the stage, grabbed my hand, and pulled me from the room. He handed me a dress, got his own change of outfit, and then left. So I would be in costume for this dance. I could do that. I wouldn't be me, I would be, whoever's dress this was. I got changed, nervous about what I was about to do, I'd be fine after the first few minutes, it was a mind over matter thing, I did this to myself all the time. I got really scared about doing something, but then once I was in the middle of it, it was really easy. I didn't even look at the dress while I was changing, I only noticed what it looked like as I was looking at the fan that came with it. It was a sapphire blue mini dress, I had to wear a mini dress. Well, I didn't actually look terrible in it, just a bit strange. Hopefully Japan would have to wear something stupid too. Though as he was a guy he most certainly wouldn't have to wear anything as slutty as this. France was probably going to have a heart attack when I got back out there. The dance was playing through my mind as I studied the dress in the mirror, not only did I look like a slut, I had to dance like a pole dancer, without a pole. At least I was only dancing with Japan, well, I wasn't actually dancing with him until the end, up until then it was a dance battle, so we were against each other. "Vanessa, are you ready?" Japan's voice scared me, pulling me from my thoughts. I opened the door. "Yep." I said. I took my position at one side of the stage and he took his position opposite.


	28. What's going on?

We started the dance. I was a little nervous for the first few minutes, but I soon got into it, putting all my energy into the moves. Near the end I started to stumble a little, but I was starting to get tired, so I didn't think anything of it. Then the music started to slow, and I knew it was coming to an end. I took the final step forward and completely lost my footing. Japan grabbed my arm to steady me, and I saw France running towards the stage. The room started spinning, and even with Japan steadying me I was swaying. France jumped onto the stage, calling my name, and I fell backwards, plunging into darkness. When I woke up I was on a sofa, I could hear people whispering, but I couldn't see anyone. I tried to lift my head, but I went dizzy again, so put it back down. I wanted to call out to someone, but I didn't know who was there. So I stayed silent and tried to listen to the voices that were only just audible to me. It sounded like Uncle Arthur was one of them, but I couldn't be sure. The other voice was too quiet for me to hear properly, but I strained to catch any of what they were saying. The door opened and France walked in. He looked worried, and breathed a huge sigh of relief when he saw me looking at him. He came and sat by my side. "I'm glad you're awake. You had me worried there." He said, placing a glass on the table that was by the other chair. I tried to sit up, and did so without getting dizzy. "What happened?" He asked me, tucking a lose strand of hair behind my ear. "I don't know." I rubbed my head, "I was fine, and then everything just started spinning, I could barely stand up." I said, and it was true. I didn't know what had happened. "I bet it's got something to do with this Vegas thing." France said, reading my thoughts. Of course he wasn't really reading my mind, but he said it as I thought it, so we were obviously on the same wavelength. "What time is it?" I asked, France looked at his watch. "9:35. You've been unconscious all night." He answered. I groaned. 'All night, how can I have been out cold all night?' I asked myself, although I didn't know the answer, so I couldn't tell myself why. We stayed there talking for a while, but pretty soon I started feeling kind of sick. The feeling just got worse and worse and eventually I had to run to the bathroom. I timed it perfectly, as I was sick when I got there. France had followed close behind me, and was now rubbing my back gently, in an attempt to make me feel better. "We need to find out what's wrong with you, you haven't been right for a few days now." He said. I suddenly understood. He was right, I'd been off for a few days, I'd been off for a few days, three days, to be precise. We'd all been told about this when we were at collage, for personifications it progressed very quickly, and sometimes strange things happened, such as fainting. So that was the only explanation I could think of. I was pregnant. I had the symptoms, I'd fainted, I'd had a real hankering for cucumber yesterday, so perhaps that was a craving, and now I seemed to have morning sickness. There was nothing else it could be. I got up and turned to the door, I needed to get some fresh air. I reached for the handle, but then fell to my knees in shock. Something had moved inside me.


	29. I have to be certain

"Right, so tomorrow at 10. Got it. Thanks." France said, putting the phone down. "Got you a hospital appointment." He turned to me. "Thank you." I smiled weakly. I was starting to doubt my pregnancy theory. I hadn't been able to stand up all day, and I just felt ill, not pregnant, ill. But every time I managed to convince myself that there was no way that I could possibly be pregnant, and I was just paranoid, I swear I felt something move. I discretely put my hand on my stomach, I didn't want France to know my theory until I was certain I was right. After a few minutes of nothing I went to move my hand away again, when I definitely felt movement. I fought to stay looking calm on the outside, but my heart was fluttering, I'd just felt something move inside of me. 'My baby' I thought, and it moved again. I kept my hand there for ages, and then when France left the room to go get something I sat up, I pulled my top up so I could see my stomach, and there was a bump. It was only a small bump, but it was there. I let my top fall and laid back down, only this time I was curled up, protecting my stomach. I told Angelica when she came to visit, and asked her if she would get me a proper test for it, I didn't really need one to know that I was pregnant, but some small part of me still thought that perhaps the movements were just my imagination, and perhaps, I wasn't pregnant at all. She, of course, agreed. She also promised not to let anyone know that it was for me, especially not France or our dad. I did say that, as long as she made him swear to secrecy, she could tell Spain, otherwise he might panic a bit, thinking that it was for her, but other than that, she could tell no one. She was surprisingly quick at acquiring it, and because my legs were weak it gave her a good excuse to come with me when I went to the bathroom. We were still in the meeting hall, though I wasn't entirely sure why, so there were lots of cubicles in the bathroom. We checked that they were all empty and then locked the door, we didn't want anyone coming in. I took the test, and we started the wait. After what seemed to have been an eternity, it was time. I took a step towards the test. "I can't, I can't look." I cried, backing off again, my hands covering my mouth. "Okay, okay, I will." Angelica said, picking up the test. "What does it say." I asked, nearly in tears. "It's negative." She said, I spun round. "Negative." The tears spilled. "Well, that clears that up, I'm not pregnant. It's better this way. So why am I crying about not having it?" The tears were running down my face at full speed, and my words were high pitched as I tried not to sob. "You really wanted that baby didn't you?" Angelica asked me. "I didn't think I would mind either way, but, yeah, I really wanted that baby. I could have sworn that I even felt it move. Are you sure it's negative?" I checked. She gave a small smile. "It's positive." Her small smile turned into a grin. "What, but you said-" I rushed the words, but she cut me off. "I lied. I wanted you to know how you felt about it. Not just how you thought you felt before, when you could feel it." Her grin grew wider and she hugged me. "I'm gonna be an Aunt." She giggled, before turning to a slightly more serious note. "You just have to tell France now." She said, "And dad." I groaned. Dad was gonna kill me, and I had absolutely no idea now France was going to react to this news. He could get mad, be really happy, a bit confused, or worst case scenario, he walks out on me. I wasn't sure I wanted to know which one it was going to be.


	30. How to put this

I decided to tell France before telling my dad. It seemed like the logical thing to do. I composed myself, washing my face so that it wasn't tear stained, and headed back to where France was waiting for us. Angelica gave me a reassuring look before leaving the room. I was a bit on edge and I knew France could see that. He was looking at me, a hint of fear in his eyes as I sat down in front of him, taking his hands. "Francis, there's something that I need to tell you." I took a deep breath. Thinking of how to word it. "I'm pregnant." I decided to just say it straight, not beat about the bush. His jaw dropped, he was speechless. After a few minutes he finally found some words. "W-what?" Well, a word. "I'm pregnant." I said again. "B-but we only, I mean, it was only like three days ago, h-how can you know this?" He stuttered. "Pregnancy's in personifications progress very quickly, well, the first few stages anyway, it doesn't take long for some of the symptoms to kick in." I said, in a way I was still trying to convince myself that it was true, so I could understand France's reluctance to believe it. "B-but, are you absolutely certain." He seemed to have run out of any arguments now. I pulled the test from my pocket and handed it to him so that he could see for himself. He looked at it for a minute, then ran his hand through his hair. "I'm gonna be a father." He said, realization finally hitting him. His shock faded and he smiled. "I'm gonna be a father!" He laughed, then he stood up and twirled me round. "I'm gonna get called 'daddy'." He grinned hugely, and I couldn't help but smile back. He put his hand on my stomach and, as if realizing that it was there, the baby moved. He looked at my stomach in shock, then placed his other hand there as well. The baby moved again. He laughed and hugged me tightly. He kissed me gently. "I love you." He said, then he rubbed my stomach. "And I love you too." And as if it were responding, the baby moved again.


	31. Sorry to ask

"Sorry about this Francis, but you have to help me tell my dad." I said slowly. The smile fell from his face. He thought about this prospect for a moment, then nodded slowly. "You do realize he'll probably get really mad. Maybe not at you, but definitely at me." He said. I bit my lip. "Well, he'll get mad at you because, well, it's your fault, but he'll get mad at me because I didn't, stop you." I said. "I know it's my fault, but I'm very happy that you didn't stop me." He smiled slightly again. "Are you happy I didn't stop you because if I had I wouldn't be pregnant, or because if I had then you wouldn't have had as much fun?" I asked jokingly, raising my eyebrows at him. "Both." He grinned. We left the room in search of my father. I was able to walk faster now, my legs not as weak. He wasn't hard to find. There were other people in the room with him, so we took him out of the room. We made him sit down, and then he started get agitated. Everybody knew that when you're told to sit down for news, it's bad news. I sat down next to him, and France positioned himself so that he could protect me if my dad flipped. That did not go un-noticed by my dad. I took a deep breath. "Dad, I'm pregnant." I said, telling him was no where near as hard as I thought it was going to be. "You're what?" He said, almost as if it were an accusation. "I'm pregnant." I repeated. If everyone we told needed me to say it more than once then this was going to drag on forever. "You're not going to keep it are you?" He expected me to abort it. How dare he! "Of course I'm going to keep it! I'm not getting rid of it." I cried, standing up. France stood up as well, and tried to coax me into sitting back down, but it didn't work. "I don't think you realize just how hard raising a child is, Vanessa." My dad stood up too, determined to talk me into abortion, which to me just sounded like another word for murder. "I don't care how hard it is, I'm keeping my baby!" I was getting mad now. "Well, if you want to raise a child by yourself, then go ahead, because that's what will happen." He'd just hit a nerve. "What makes you think I'll be raising it by myself?" I could see that France was getting angry now. "You really think he'll stay with you for this!" He yelled, I clenched my fists, but France retaliated before I had a chance to. "Of course I'll be there for her! I'd never leave her or the baby, and you need to get that into your head right now!" Man was I glad he was here. My father stopped then, his face completely blank from all emotion. He was staring at me, I stared back, unable to even hazard a guess as to what he was thinking. Just then, something strange happened inside me. I cringed, pain shooting all over me. One arm wrapped around my stomach and the other reached out for France. He was there, by my side as my knees gave way. He caught me, and put me on a chair. My father ran out of the room and I heard him dialing a number into his phone. I knew that he was calling an ambulance, but I didn't care. There was only one thought in my mind, echoing endlessly. 'What if I lose the baby.' I was crying now, rubbing my stomach, praying silently that my little baby would be alright. I looked France in the eye, and saw all of my fears reflected in his eyes.


	32. Let it be okay

'Let it be okay, let my baby be alright.' I begged inside my head. I repeated it so many times that it felt like my brain was a broken record, and I couldn't stop myself picturing the worst case scenario. I was so scared about what was happening. Paramedics fussed around me, asking me questions. I answered them, but wasn't really aware that I was saying anything. The room was slowly spinning and all of a sudden I felt a sharp pain shoot through my stomach. It felt like I was being stabbed and I screamed. The paramedics went into panic mode as, once again, I fell unconscious.

*France's p.o.v*

The paramedics were fussing around her, checking her all over. I kept hold of her hand for as long as I possibly could, but I was pushed out of the way. Then all of a sudden she jerked, screaming. She was rushed into the ambulance, unconscious now. I tried to go after her, but someone was holding me back. I struggled, and managed to get a glimpse of who it was. America. "Let me go!" I cried, trying to free myself of his grasp. I looked back at Vanessa, lying there in the ambulance, and caught sight of red slowly spreading across the sheet that was covering her. Seeing that was all I needed, with a sudden burst of adrenaline I shoved America off of me and ran to the ambulance. As soon as I was inside the doors closed, and we were moving. I looked down at Vanessa, she still looked so scared, despite her unconscious state. I seized her hand, whispering in her ear all the way to the hospital, praying that she would be alright. I'd almost lost her once before, was I about to lose her for real? I tried to push the thought out of my head, but it stayed there, picking away at my sanity. I tried to focus on what the paramedics were saying, but their words were just noises to me, they didn't matter, nothing did, nothing but Vanessa. Suddenly she was taken away from me as the doors opened. I stood stunned for a moment, then ran after her. I couldn't quite keep up, they were moving so quickly. The automatic doors opened, and I heard one of the paramedic's rushed voices slice through the air. "She's stopped breathing, we have to get her down there quick, before we lose her." I stopped dead. Slowly, all of my surroundings faded into nothing as the words 'before we lose her' echoed endlessly in my head. I really was going to lose her, and that meant losing both her, and the baby.


	33. What about the baby?

This is still France's p.o.v by the way :)

* * *

I walked into the room where she was lying. She was wired up to machines that I'd never seen before and her eyes were closed, almost as if she was sleeping. I stroked her hair as the door opened behind me. A nurse came in and started adjusting the wires and tubes. It had been nearly 20 hours since we'd arrived here, and they'd managed to get Vanessa breathing again, but with the help of a machine. She still wasn't breathing on her own. The nurse started talking to me then. "It's always scary for relatives." She said, I didn't respond, but that didn't quell her. "I understand how you feel, my own sister was in hospital not that long ago." She thought that I was Vanessa's brother, I now had to respond to correct her, although I didn't really want to. "She's not my sister." The nurse seemed taken aback. "Oh, I'm sorry." She looked at me carefully for a moment. "Yes, I suppose I should have realized, from the way you look at her. But it's fine, she's in a stable condition, and the doctors think she'll make a full recovery. From the look of her records she a fighter." She was trying to be nice, but I ignored everything she said after 'she's in a stable condition'. I knew she was, but, I couldn't be sure about the baby. "What about the baby, is it stable?" I asked, my voice cracking. She hung her head. "I can't rightly say at the moment, the scans are still being looked at. Oh yes, that reminds me, the doctors wanted me to ask you, how far on is she again?" I gave a small smile, despite it all, no way was she going to believe me when I told her. "Three days." I said flatly, losing my smile. "Three days! How can you possible know about it after three days?" She was stunned, not surprising though. "She's a personification, pregnancy's progress quickly for us." I turned to the nurse, who's eyes were wide in astonishment. "P-personifications of w-what?" She stammered. "Countries. Or cities." I held out my hand. "For example, I'm France, how do you do?" She shook my hand. "So you're France. Then what, or, where, is she?" She gestured at Vanessa. "She's Las Vegas." I said. "And, will the baby be one too?" I hadn't thought about that before. If Vanessa and the twins were American States, or cities or whatever they were because they were America's daughters, then would that make the baby, Paris? "Paris." I whispered. The nurse heard me, though I was barely making a sound. "Ooh, Paris, then it'll probably be elegant, and romantic." She clasped her hands together. "Wait, does where they are have an impact on the gender?" Again, something I'd never thought about before. "I'm not sure, it might actually." I was questioning it in my head. "It wouldn't surprise me if it was a little girl, Paris is very elegant, and I personally think that a girl would be better suited to the role. Anyway, I'd better leave you in peace now, I've got other patients, after all." She left the room. I rubbed Vanessa's stomach gently. The baby had to be okay, my little baby. My little Paris.


	34. This is wrong

Everything just felt wrong. Leaving the hospital, driving home, eating. It all felt wrong without her by my side. Even I felt wrong, like part of me was in the hospital with her. But in a way, part of me was with her. It hurt knowing that I wasn't there to protect her, that I couldn't speak to her and that I couldn't be sure she would still be alive by the time I got back. "I swear it wasn't this hard when she got hit by that car." I groaned to myself. It was true, it hadn't been as hard. I'd known what was wrong with her and the chances of anything bad happening. Now I had no idea what was wrong with her, or what was wrong with the baby. It hadn't moved when I stroked her stomach. I'd kept my hand there for over half an hour and there hadn't been any movement whatsoever. That scared me. I tossed and turned endlessly in my bed, unable to sleep. I just kept thinking of her there all alone. What if she woke up, she would be so scared if I wasn't there, or what if she died, I would never forgive myself if I wasn't there. I sat up, vanquishing the covers. I went to get a glass of water, and found that I was shaking when I went to take a sip, my teeth chattering against the glass. I tried to keep myself occupied, giving myself jobs to do. It worked for a while, until I found the picture from one of the rides we went on on our date. That pushed me over the edge and I broke down. Sobbing, I fell into a heap on the floor. I stayed there for hours, then there was a knock on the door. I didn't say anything, I just sat up slightly. There was another knock. I stayed put and didn't make a sound, and then a key turned in the lock. Only two other people had a key, Gilbert and Antonio, and that was only so they could get in if one of us was overly drunk. I let my head fall back to the floor as the door opened to reveal Antonio. I thought he might have Angelica with him, seen as they were an item now, but no, it was just him. He sighed when he saw me on the floor, and forced me to get up. He drove me to the hospital to see Vanessa and we sat either side of her. I held her hand, stroking her soft skin with my thumb. We hardly spoke the whole time, but I knew that Antonio had something to say, and from the look on his face it was important. "What is it?" I sighed. He just looked at me, confused. "What do you need to tell me?" I looked over at him, he moved to the edge of his chair and cleared his throat. "Angel was talking to Vanessa's doctor, and he...he says that the chance of her surviving this...well, it doesn't look good." He said slowly. My heart shattered. "What is this? What's wrong with her?" I demanded. "It's the baby." He said, "Her body's trying to reject it, but she's not strong enough. If she keeps trying to get rid it, then neither one will make it."


	35. My only option

"That can't be true, you're lying to me." I cried, unable to believe it. "Why would I lie about something as serious as this Francis? I'm not an idiot." Antonio retaliated. I backed down, knowing he was right. "I can't lose both of them, I just can't, at least one of them has to make it. If both died, I couldn't bear it." I said, my voice cracking. "Well...there are a couple of things that the doctors think would work." I whipped my head round to look at him. "They could abort the baby...or...well...they think that if they can keep her stable...there might be a chance...that they could...deliver the baby, premature." He could barely get the words out, he was probably scared of giving me false hope. "And if they did deliver it, what about Vanessa? What would happen to her?" I asked. "If they do that then, then she wouldn't have a very high chance of surviving it, and neither would the baby." There was more to what he was saying, I could tell from the tone of his voice, and I could tell what it was. "But Vanessa would have a lower chance than the baby, wouldn't she?" I turned away from him again. "Si. But that's the only way you could ever even have a chance of getting both." He was trying to convince me to go through with it, but I didn't know if I could. If the baby survived and Vanessa didn't, how on earth would I be able to look at it every day and not think of it's mother? How could I possibly cope if it looked like her? But then, how could I let them abort it? What kind of monster would I be if I told them to kill my child? I stood up, walking out of the ward. Antonio hurried after me, but when we got to the front door I didn't go to his car with him. "I need to think some stuff over, I'm just going to walk around for a while." I said, stuffing my hands in my pockets and sauntering away from him. He hesitated, wanting to follow, but then thought better of it and drove off. There was a chance that both of them could survive. But only a slim chance. It was possible that neither would, and if they couldn't keep Vanessa stable for long enough, then I had no hope. But if they could, then I might be able to have both, or at least one of them. If Vanessa survived and the baby didn't, then we could always try to have a baby in a few years, and if the baby survived and Vanessa didn't, then I could tell it stories of it's wonderful mother, and show it pictures, and it would never have to worry about having a stepmother, because no other woman could ever match up to Vanessa. So I didn't have any other choice, I had to wait and find out if they could keep her stable for long enough to deliver the baby, of course there was no guaranty that neither one would make it, but that was a risk that I had to take, it was my only option.


	36. Broken silence

The next few months went by in flash. Every day was exactly the same, I spent all day at the hospital, watching over my soul mate and my unborn baby, and then at the end of the day I went home and spent endless hours laying awake, dreading the day that the routine would change, and they would finally judge it safe to deliver the baby. That would be the day that my world would be completely changed, whether it would be in a good or a bad way I didn't know, but it wouldn't be long now. The dreaded date was getting closer and closer. I wasn't even sure what day it was now, I'd completely lost all sense of everything. I hardly ate, I very rarely slept, and when I did it wasn't a rest full sleep, full of nightmares and unanswered questions. But one morning I got out of bed and nearly fell over as I realized what day it was. I tried to push the thoughts of what could go wrong out of my head as I got ready to go to the hospital, but sadly it was to no avail, I couldn't help myself thinking about what could go wrong. On the way to the hospital I was able to distract myself by chanting names in my head. Knowing that something could happen, me and Vanessa had spoken about names, we'd decided that if the baby was a boy, we would call it Alexander, and if it was a girl, then it would be Clarissa. I repeated the names over and over, alternating each time, 'Alexander, Clarissa, Alexander, Clarissa' and so on, as if it would never end. I practically sprinted through the corridors to get to her, desperate to get one last glimpse of her before she went into theater. I knew that her eyes would still be closed right now, but after the doctors had delivered the baby they were going to try and wake her up, even if just for a moment, so that she could see our child. I didn't like thinking about that bit, every time I did I became terrified that her eyes would open, but then close again straight away. I was allowed into the theater, but obviously I had to wear the sanitary clothes and face mask and stuff. They numbed her so that if she did wake up she wouldn't be in pain, and made the cut. The doctors were working painfully slowly, and I don't know how long it took, it seemed like forever, and everyone was silent. But then the silence was broken, and the room was filled with cries, both my own and my new little girl, my little darling Clarissa.


	37. Take care of her

Tears streamed down my face as I listened to Clarissa's cries, my little baby was safe, she was right there is front of me, screaming her little head off. The doctors worked on Vanessa for a while before they started trying to wake her up, when they did I held my breath, scared that nothing would happen, but slowly her breathing got louder, and her eyes flickered open weakly. She heard a muffled cry from Clarissa and her hand reached out to stroke her. A tear ran down her face as our baby opened her eyes for the very first time, they were a brilliant shade of blue, in fact, they were more indigo than anything else. Then Vanessa's breathing got faster, rattling against her ribs, and we both realized what was about to happen. I just watched as she murmured to our daughter, apologizing to her. "Francis." She whispered, her eyes half closing, her breath rasping now. "Take care of her." Her eyes closed fully, and the sound of her breathing ceased. "I will." I promised, knowing that there was no way that she could possibly hear me now. I clasped Clarissa tightly and took her into the waiting room to meet her waiting aunts and grandfather. "Aww, she's so cute Francis." Maria cooed, "Look at her hair!" Cried Angelica. Clarissa did have tiny little wisps of dark brown hair, I planned to snip one off and keep it with Vanessa. America just stood there, a worried expression clouding his face and eyes. "And what about Vanessa?" He asked, I hung my head, and all of them started crying. Even Clarissa began to wail forlornly, but I couldn't cry for her. I already had, far too much, and now Clarissa was my main priority. Yes, obviously I would mourn her, she was my soul mate, but I was a father now, and that took precedence over everything else. I was allowed to take her home that very evening, and we both settled down quickly. In a few days I had her nicely in a routine, well, she had me in one, but after about a week it was time for Vanessa's funeral. I dressed fully in black and dressed Clarissa in her very own little black gown. We were riding in the first car behind Vanessa, along with America and the twins. She would be buried next to her mother, so that they would be reunited, and then we would head back to America's. I clambered into the car and sat next to Maria, she was close to tears and had to keep biting her lip to stop herself crying. Angelica, on the other hand, seemed quite calm, with no expression on her face, but her eyes showed everything, the pain, the sorrow, the grief. She looked at Clarissa, who was curled up in my arms, silent, but with her eyes wide open, taking everything in. "She's very quiet today." She observed. "She's always quiet, barely makes any sound at all." I said softly. "No doubt she's pining, babies her age normally have their mothers." America interjected, his voice was hoarse, full of anger and resent, and his face showed nothing less. None of us said anything more for the rest of the ride. I managed to stay calm the entire way, but as we pulled up outside of the church, I suddenly couldn't bare to be there, I clutched Clarissa to me, wondering how I could possibly get out of that car.


	38. The final chapter

In the end I had to force myself out of the car, I couldn't let Vanessa down that way, it just wouldn't be right; plus I had to set Clarissa a good example. Sure she was only a few days old, but there was a look in her eyes, like she knew things, like she knew so many things that we couldn't even imagine, things that were far beyond any of us, and everything that was going on around her. I felt as though she would know if I wimped out, that she would know that we were supposed to be somewhere that we weren't, and so I had to get out and follow everyone else into the graveyard. I sat silently through the entire service while others around my sobbed and sniffed, Clarissa stayed silent as well, cuddled against me, hardly even moving. I nearly burst out crying as Vanessa was lowered into the ground, my vision blurred, tears piling up, but then Clarissa nuzzled her head against me, pulling me back from the edge. This happened more than once, and I was very grateful that I hadn't brought her pram. I threw a fist full of earth on top of the coffin, as did America and the twins. When everyone else went back to the cars both me and America stayed behind. "How are we going to cope without her?" He said sadly, a single tear rolling down his face. "I don't know. I really don't know." I managed to choke out. We stood there in silence for a while until America decided to give me some time there by myself; he offered to take Clarissa with him, but I refused to let him, I wanted her here with me, otherwise I felt I would go insane. He left and I started talking to Vanessa. I knew that she couldn't talk back, but I felt that she would want to know how Clarissa had been and how we were all coping, but after a while I ran out of things to say. I plucked the white rose from my coat pocket and placed it on her grave, and then I said the final word of the final chapter of this part of my life. "Goodbye."


End file.
